


These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends

by cgf_kat



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgf_kat/pseuds/cgf_kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik returns, weeks after Cuba, to find Charles on his deathbed. Charles asks him to stay. Erik refuses to believe that all is lost...especially considering that Charles's condition is his fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a sad one...and I blame it and the title completely on the recent watching of the _Romeo X Juliet_ anime. I've been listening to the soundtrack constantly when writing this. *headdesk*

Erik doesn't know why he goes back. It's been weeks since Cuba—since he walked away from the only person he's ever loved since the day Shaw killed his mother—and he thinks he's been dealing with the fallout well enough. He thinks he's kept himself in check: his emotions, his needs, all subordinate now to the fact that he has a job to do. A world to change.

He doesn't have time for his heart. He proved that when he left it behind, broken on the sand on that beach.

He doesn't know why he goes back. He just does it. There is no conscious thought, just a feeling and then he's searching for Azazel. The red-skinned mutant raises an eyebrow at him but does not question his request. In moments they are at the bottom of a hill in Westchester, New York, and Erik tells his companion to return in several hours. Azazel nods and disappears.

He turns toward the house, the mansion, and he's come in full regalia of course, capped off with the helmet. He wouldn't want to give Charles any ideas. He tells himself he's here for follow-up only. Perhaps they may now be on clearly opposite sides of this war, but he should be sure that Charles is well. The others too. They were left stranded on a beach in foreign country, after all, and Charles had been injured…

Erik stops that thought before it can go too far. Before he can let himself fear, or feel guilt, or anything else.

He knows what those feelings will be when he has them, but if he feels anything while he is here he may not leave again, after all.

But he must. He has a fight to win. A fight Charles refuses to believe exists. Even if he believes it is there now—and how can he not?—he does not share Erik's views, or he would have said yes. He would have stayed at Erik's side, where he belongs, but he didn't.

His choice.

So be it.

Erik moves slowly up the hill, with measured steps, giving himself time to decipher what he will do when he arrives at the door. Will he even go in? Maybe if he circles the house, peers through windows…perhaps he can find out what he wants to know without anyone ever knowing he was there. And they won't know. Not if no one sees him. Not if he keeps the helmet on. Not even Charles will ever know he came.

If he can see Charles; if he can know the man he was able to love for such an achingly brief time is all right….

He could survive, at least, on that, he thinks.

But…

But they've seen him. Someone has. He isn't quite there yet, but Hank McCoy has come from a side door. He's just standing there watching Erik approach, warily, and his arms are crossed over his chest and his eyes are narrowed. Erik walks straight to him, not backing down from the challenge, though the young man looms over him in height and is larger than him, now, with the added muscle and blue fur.

"Beast," he acknowledges.

Hank only snarls. "If the professor hadn't picked up that I saw you coming and asked me not to hurt you, you would be dead by now."

"I'm sure seeing you try that would be interesting." The answer is cold, but his chest is fluttering at the mention of his once lover, and he quickly stamps down the beginnings of emotion.

Meanwhile, there is a low growl from Hank.

"Are you going to allow me inside or will Charles be coming out here?"

"Who says he wants to see you?" the other mutant snaps.

Erik refuses to react to that. "Well?"

Hank stares him down for a long moment, and then turns on the heel of a padded foot in a much more graceful movement than anything he was capable of before his change. "You're coming inside. Against my better judgment," he huffs.

Erik follows him into the mansion, and through the ground floor to the base of the stairs that he remembers climbing so many times, often with Charles at his side…

When he mentally shakes himself, they've stopped, and he realizes that Alex Summers is hurrying down the stairs and holding out a hand as if to stop them.

"Wait, wait, uh…" He all but drops off the bottom step in front of them, and now that he has a closer view Erik realizes how pale he looks—the drawn, worried look on his face, which is something new from smug Alex.

Hank's face has gone slack. "Alex?"

Alex glances at Erik, and then back to Hank, quickly suppressing a grimace. "Not a good time. Really not a good time," he says quickly, and his voice is pitched low and Erik doesn't like it at all.

"What?" Erik insists. "What the hell is going on?"

Alex scowls at him. "You're just gonna have to wait."

" _Why_? Where is Charles?" His fists clench, and any metal in the immediate vicinity begins to vibrate. He has much more control now and he could stop it if he wanted to, but he does it purposely.

"Hey," Hank barks. "You don't make the rules here. You _left_. You want to see the professor? You wait until—"

He cuts off, wincing, probably knowing anything he says is useless once Erik hears the wrenching scream from upstairs. It isn't only one scream, either. It's one scream after another, growing more desperate and pained by the second, and Erik would know that voice under water.

"Charles," he breathes. He's bounding up the stairs before they can stop him, and they shout after him but he goes anyway, following the heart-rending screams to a room he knows well. The door is closed, and locked, but he feels it before he gets there and with a single flick of his wrist the lock is disengaged and the door is pushed open. He charges in with no warning, and no thought of what he will do.

He only knows that the man he loves—still loves, damnit—is in pain.

He can hardly take everything in at once. He only catches glimpses of the medical equipment around the four-poster bed and he barely registers that Sean is there, at its side. All he sees is Charles, back arched and taut in the bed, head thrown back in the pillows as he hoarsely screams at full capacity.

"Charles!" His gaze shifts angrily to Sean then, who with red-rimmed eyes looks up at him in shock.

"You aren't supposed to be in here right now!"

"Why aren't you _doing_ anything!"

"This is all I _can_ do!" He means his arm. While the one of Charles's hand is twisted in the blanket, the other is clamped around Sean's wrist. Sean is gripping Charles's arm in return, a pitiful attempt at comfort.

Erik hasn't broken his quick stride for the bed, and the helmet is the first thing to go. He lets it fall carelessly from his hands, because he knows hitting the floor will not hurt it and because Charles and what is hurting him and _stopping it_ is more important now.

_Charles, I'm here! What's happening? I'm here…Charles!_

But Charles doesn't seem to hear him.

Ignoring Sean and his lack of action, Erik drops quickly onto the bed and pushes himself to Charles's side. He gathers the younger man into his arms, breath leaving him in shock at how much smaller he is than the last time Erik held him. He pulls him to his chest, holds him close, and one by one pulls his gloves off with his teeth and tosses them away. Charles is still screaming, writhing in his arms and sobbing dryly into his deep red tunic, and Erik holds his head under his chin and doesn't let go. The only indication that Charles knows he's there is that he's let go of Sean's arm and the blanket and his fingers are twisted in Erik's clothing, instead.

Though as much pain as he seems to be in, it may have been reflex. It may mean nothing at all.

_I'm right here, I'm right here, I'm right here…!_

"What's happening to him!" He shouts it, demanding, desperate, and Hank and Alex have run in behind him and all three young men are just standing there, doing nothing, while their mentor shudders in agony.

And then…and then….

Charles abruptly stops screaming. He goes limp in Erik's arms, moaning, and Erik sees the others' faces. He really looks, for the first time, and he sees the resignation. The pain and the helplessness.

This is not something new to them.

"What the hell is going on?" he demands again, low and dangerous though it barely comes out at all for breathlessness thanks to adrenaline.

Charles is still now but for his own heaving chest, and a long several moments of silence is broken by his weak voice. His head turns enough that his voice will not be muffled, but his voice seems to barely be there.

 _Charles_ seems to barely be there, body thinner and lighter and unhealthy. Erik can feel it, and now that he can think about it again his heart stutters in fear.

"Sean…Alex…Hank…thank you, but…you may go. I will explain this to him," Charles says.

Alex glares at Erik fiercely. "He doesn't deserve shit."

Hank growls. "No, let him hear it; he deserves to know what he did."

Sean trudges out from behind the bed and shrugs in a defeated way that makes Erik's chest tighten even though he tells himself he doesn't care. He only cares about Charles. "Whatever. Come on." He glances back from the door. "Professor, just, you know…let us know if you need anything…"

Erik feels Charles nod minutely against his chest. "Thank you, Sean."

Sean nods and is gone, and the other two reluctantly follow.

As soon as they've left Erik lets out the shuddering breath he didn't know he was holding. "Charles…what was that?" he questions desperately. He doesn't bother to keep the worry or the anxiousness from his voice; the helmet is off, and Charles would know anyway.

God, he looks awful. His skin is pale and damp with sweat, marked by dark circles beneath his eyes and red rings around them, and soaked hair clings to his forehead while the rest of it is unkempt and flighty. He wears nothing but a thin gray t-shirt and deep blue pajama pants that disappear beneath the sheets. There is an IV line in the arm at the edge of the bed.

Charles opens his mouth, but coughs instead of whatever he was going to say. He grimaces, nearly doubling over in Erik's lap, and his body shudders but—

His legs. He didn't notice before. Why are Charles's legs so still?

Charles must have heard the thought. He clears his throat once the coughing stops and the rest of him is still again. "I can't feel them, Erik. My legs are gone," he says quietly. It isn't accusing, or angry, or anything of the sort. It's put into the air as a simple fact, but Erik's freezes anyway.

He knows why. There isn't any way he _wouldn't_ know why. He deflected the bullet himself; he's known since a split second before it happened that it was his own doing. He didn't know until now that it had led to this, but he knows that it is his fault.

It doesn't help that Charles hasn't yet looked him in the eye.

And what the hell was it that just happened? Why was he in pain?

Charles pulls in a careful breath and plunges on, without waiting for Erik to ask him to. "What happened, just now…is unrelated."

"Un—" Erik stops, scowls, and tightens his hold just a bit, of the arm around Charles's waist. His other arm supports Charles's head now, and his shoulders, Erik's fingers are curled gently around his arm, and he can feel how cold and clammy Charles's skin is. It scares him. "Charles, what's wrong with you?" And he can't check the dread in his voice.

Charles gulps noisily, and takes another breath. It seems hard for him, to breathe, and Erik sees the oxygen mask hanging from a stand next to the IV stand. His chest tightens again. "Charles?"

Finally the younger man lifts his eyes, the piercing blue of them the only thing about Charles that does not seem somehow dimmed. He speaks slowly, matter-of-factly, but gently.

"My mind is…damaged, Erik. My brain is forgetting how to keep my body functioning properly…forgetting how to keep me alive. I'm dying."

And any last hope remaining of keeping his emotions in check slips away.

"What?" he gasps. He can't breathe. "I don't—I don't…understand. What about—why were you _screaming_? God, I—" He feels the light brush of that familiar mind in his own, deliberately calming him, and he scowls. " _Charles_ ," he pleads.

"It's…that was…a relapse, I suppose, for lack of a better word…my mind reliving the trauma that caused the damage. It's happened often enough…though I rather wish it wouldn't, but I can't seem to…to stop it. It is not…helping my condition. I'm afraid the flashbacks are speeding my decay, more than anything."

Erik isn't quite processing what he is hearing anymore. "What…what are you talking about? What _damage_? What _happened_ to you? _Why is this happening to you_?"

Charles frowns and just looks up at him for what seems like too long. "You really don't know." His voice is quiet, but it sends a shiver down Erik's spine just the same. Perhaps more so, because it is.

"Don't know _what_?" He makes himself say it, though suddenly he is not sure he wants to know the answer.

Charles swallows before he answers, and his voice is small and pained and Erik wishes he could make it better but he doesn't even understand what's wrong.

Charles can't be dying. He can't be. How would this world exist without him?

"I was still in Shaw's mind when you killed him, Erik," he says. "I didn't just…know what happened. I _felt_ it. I _experienced_ it. Do you…do you have any idea how many layers of connection I had to forge to keep that man under control? His powers, all of that energy, I had to—"

"Why the hell were you still in there! You should have let go!"

"If I had let go too soon he would have killed you!" Charles shot back harshly. "By the time it was safe to let go I was too far in and I couldn't disengage before he was gone." He looks away, scowling now. "I misjudged everything…"

 _Including you._ He doesn't say it or even think it but Erik understands it anyway. What he doesn't understand is everything Charles _did_ say. His own voice is rough now by the time he says anything else.

"Are you saying this is happening because of that? Because of what… _I_ did?"

Charles doesn't answer, and that is the only confirmation he needs.

"There has to be some way to fix it," he says quickly. "There has to be a way to help you, to—"

"It's been weeks, Erik," Charles says tiredly. "We have tried anything and everything. I cannot repair the damage myself even with my considerable abilities, and Hank's research has been useless; nothing else has helped me. It's too late now."

"No—" Erik chokes on it the first time, cursing the dampness gathering in his eyes. No. None of that. He is Magneto now.

Who is he trying to fool? He left Magneto at the bottom of the stairs when he heard his beloved screaming.

He feels Charles press a little bit further into his chest. "Erik…"

He knows that tone, that _it's-all-right-talk-to-me_ insistence, and the voice is weaker but it is still Charles. It is still the voice he knows, and it still sounds more caring and forgiving than he deserves. Certainly now. Resigned…but forgiving.

But if what Charles says is true…if this is all his doing…he deserves nothing. Most surely not forgiveness.

"Oh god, Charles…" he moans. And no semblance of who he has tried to become remains, and he is only Erik and he hurts.

"You didn't know," Charles whispers.

He's gasping, trying to breath through the pain that is crushing him and it isn't easy at all. "It doesn't matter. You asked me not to kill him; you _begged_ me not to do it. I should have listened to you—" Charles doesn't say anything to that either, and Erik isn't sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. "Why aren't you shouting at me? Why are you demanding that I leave? Why don't you hate me?" he whispers.

Charles lets out an unsteady breath. "Oh, Erik, my friend…I don't know that I could ever hate you even if I wished to." He shrugs weakly. "And…I suppose I have had the time to accept this. I am not entirely certain what I would have done with my life anyhow, after all of this…I certainly couldn't have simply gone back to Oxford to teach. It would have been incredibly anti-climactic."

A small bubble of laughter climbs into Erik's throat and comes out strangled when any feeling of amusement at the words is dashed by overwhelming reality—one he stubbornly wishes he did not have to accept. "Charles, are you _sure_...?"

Sadness now, deep in those blue eyes despite whatever he may have accepted or not. "I'm sure," he answers quietly. "We're all quite sure."

Erik sobs wordlessly and pulls him closer, up to his cheek, and his fingers tangle in Charles's damp hair and thin arms latch around Erik's neck. Erik doesn't feel worthy to kiss the clammy cheek that rests against his own, but Charles presses small kisses to his jaw and neck.

"Erik…stay with me," he pleads softly. "Please, it won't…it won't take up much time. I don't have—it won't be long. Please, Erik, just—"

"I'm not going anywhere," Erik cuts in. He swallows back the lump in his throat and tries to blink back the rest of the tears, but he fails miserably and the rest nearly doesn't come out. "If you want me here I'm not leaving."

Charles makes a small, broken sound of relief, and there isn't much strength in the tugging when he rests a hand against Erik's cheek and pulls Erik's lips to his, but Erik lets it happen because Charles wants it. Not that he _doesn't_ want it, to kiss Charles…to love him…but he doesn't deserve it anymore.

But he'll stay here, for now. He'll stay because Charles needs him to, and until Charles draws his last breath he won't believe it's hopeless.


	2. Chapter 2

Charles kisses him a second time, long and lingering, and it hurts even more than it did the first time. Erik keeps that to himself, but when Charles lets his arms relax and slumps back into Erik's hold, the look on his face is somewhat apologetic.

"I'm sorry…just for a moment, I needed to pretend…" He swallows noisily. "I won't do it again if you don't want me to."

Part of Erik rebels, screaming that it can't happen again or he'll break; it hurts too much, because they both know what will never be. What never could be, even if Charles somehow survives.

But it's clear that Charles is going to need more than just this once, to make it through this…even if it doesn't end the way Erik wants it to. With Charles alive. He looks so small, so vulnerable against Erik's shoulder, and it's so obvious that he's going need everything Erik can bear to give him. He takes an unsteady breath and leans down deliberately to take a short kiss from lips that are too thin and cold, but just as sweet as he's remembered these long weeks since he walked away.

"It's all right."

Charles understands. Erik can see it in the way he relaxes in relief.

_Thank you,_ he thinks softly. They're the last words for a while. Erik straightens again, and just holds him. He tries to figure out just how much weight Charles has lost, and trying to is complicated by the small tremors that shiver through his body. They're nearly imperceptible, but it takes a while for them to stop. They do stop though, and Erik wonders if they were the aftereffects of the mental relapse that had hurt him so much.

He wonders how often those relapses happen.

"I'm sorry." Erik is the one to break the long silence, and it comes out almost in a gasp. "I'm so sorry, Charles."

He caused this. He did.

Charles's eyes are suddenly damp, but there are no tears as his gaze becomes distant. "Erik…if it's all right with you, I…I don't want to waist time placing blame or...arguing, or..." He falters, and Erik holds him a little tighter and nods wordlessly. When Charles's gaze shifts back to his face he sees.

There is silence for more long minutes, Erik just glad to have Charles in his arms right at this moment.

And then Charles—because he's Charles—tries, for the first time, to lighten the mood. Rather then lying quietly he looks Erik up and down as well as he can from where he's resting, and he makes a face.

"Erik, what on earth are you wearing?"

The heavy gray pants and red tunic are far too warm now, sitting here with Charles half in his lap and gathered against him, the heels of the boots are pressing into his legs where they're folded, and the cape is tangled in the arms he's holding on with and pulling at his collar.

It made him feel powerful, out there. Important. A force to be reckoned with.

Now he feels ridiculous.

Erik snorts. "If you don't think we should be wasting time on technical details then I don't want to waste any explaining my wardrobe."

Charles actually laughs at that, and it's weak but it's still the sound Erik has missed so much. It's the sound he learned to associate with happiness, and though he knows he'll never really have it again it's nice to listen, and to pretend.

Erik carefully fingers the IV line entering Charles's arm.

"What is this for?" he asks.

Charles gives it a dismissive glance. "It's the only way I can take in any nutrition. I can't keep food down anymore. There isn't an overabundance of point to it at this stage, but Hank has insisted. I suppose I have enough problems without starving entirely."

Erik's mouth opens, but nothing comes out; he shuts it again.

They're quiet again after that, until it nears the time he gave to Azazel to return. He explains quietly, that he has to leave—only for a few minutes. Charles is reluctant to let him go, but he untwists his fingers from Erik's tunic and Erik gently shifts away and lays him back against his pillows. He leans close for a moment, to kiss Charles's forehead and push his hair back and simply breath in the fact that the man he loves is still alive right now…trying to reassure himself that Charles will still be there when he returns.

"Go on," Charles nudges him gently. "I've been without you for weeks; I can last half an hour." He tries to smile, but Erik growls in the back of his throat.

"It won't be that long."

"I'll be here." It's supposed to be funny, but it isn't.

He knows that Charles doesn't expect to ever leave this bed again.

He kisses Charles again, because…he has to, and turning and putting any distance between them at all after that is the hardest thing he's ever done.

Just like it was the first time.

"You were in there a while." It's Hank, waiting for him in the corridor. His voice is flat, accusing. "Leaving now?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Erik snaps. "Not until…I'll stay as long as he needs me." He fumbles over that, and he wonders if Hank noticed.

Hank's glower only deepens, and though it's quiet because they're still just outside Charles's door, he all but snarls. "Needs you? You killed him."

"He isn't dead," Erik shoots back. "He isn't _going_ to die if I have anything to say about it."

"You don't."

"Why? Because you gave up?"

"I didn't _give up_! I didn't want to. Charles was the one who realized it first…that nothing could be done. I worked day and night for _weeks_ after he told me to give it up." Hank's tone is still vehement, even through the pain that's clear, and Erik has to admit that even though it's directed against him at the moment he likes this new side of the once shy boy.

Or he can admire it, anyway.

Erik doesn't particularly want to leave Hank with the last word, but he can't think of any way to reply. He turns on a heel, instead, and stalks down the stairs.

"I'll be back," is all he says, over his shoulder. "Azazel will be waiting for me and I need to tell him to leave."

He does just that, telling the teleporter to leave but to check back at the same time every day.

"You don't have to stay out here when you come. Come to the main entryway of the house." He can't bear the thought of being so far from Charles again, out here on the edge of the grounds, before—one way or another—this is over. "I'll make sure you're expected."

Azazel nods in understanding, and is gone.

Erik makes no mention of why, exactly, he is staying here. He does not tell Azazel to say anything to Mystique.

When Charles wants to see his sister, he will ask, and until that time comes—Erik knows it will—there isn't any reason to be so cruel as to let her worry.

Inside again, he finds Sean, who isn't as hostile, and tells him about Azazel's check-ins. Then he climbs the stairs once more but pauses at the top, feeling the sweat in his joints when he moves and the way his costume is sticking to him. He sees, too, the look on Charles's face as he took it in. Erik sighs.

_I suppose someone has thrown my things out by now._

The thought is directed, though he doesn't expect the answer he gets.

_Everything is exactly as you left it,_ Charles tells him after a moment.

Erik's eyebrows go up, and he stops one door short of Charles's room. He pushes this door open tentatively, wondering if what he's been told is true.

It is. He never spent much time in this room, and there isn't much to mark it as used, but his one bag is still on the desk at the far wall. The bed is still made the way he made it after the once that he actually slept in it—a slightly different technique than the way Charles makes a bed and the way the unused beds in the house are made.

_I asked them to leave the room alone,_ Charles thinks to him. _Just in case, I suppose. It was irrational at the time, but here you are._

Here he is. Here he is and he's only staying because Charles is dying. Why does it have to be this way?

But he knows trying to answer that question will only make things worse.

_I may need the rest of that half hour after all._

There isn't an answer in words, just a feeling of assent, and Erik wonders if even communication is becoming difficult for Charles or if he simply had nothing to say to that.

Erik hates to be away from him at all, takes a shower quickly in the adjoining bathroom before pawing through the clothes that he'd left here—normal clothes, much different than what he's usually wearing these days. Even after this much time, he can't say why he changed so much about himself so quickly.

Maybe just to keep the memories away. It's painful, now, to sift through the few sets of clothing that he had for so long because now every piece is somehow connected to a memory of Charles.

But he pulls out his old standbys—khakis and a black turtleneck—because he has nothing else here but these clothes, and because he knows it will put Charles at ease. Even if it's something of a lie.

And because maybe, for just a moment, he needs to pretend, too.

Erik hangs the costume in the closet that he never used—cape and boots and all—and he closes the door and locks it.

He doesn't bother finding anything else for his feet other than socks for now, and he pads back to Charles's room on feet that have long since become adept at silence. Not that there is any reason for it here now, but those nights that seem so long ago now, with the young people asleep and he and Charles up to, well, no good…

He stops thinking; the last thing he wants to do it upset Charles with too many thoughts of a past that is so far out of reach now, even if it was only…what? Three months ago? Four? It's cold. For the rest of the world the holidays have recently ended, but there were no celebrations among the Brotherhood, and he doubts that much happened here.

When Erik pushes open the door that isn't quite shut he finds Hank in the room, settling another of more than one new blanket over Charles's shivering body. Erik sees the pile of them at the end of the bed now, and more strewn on the floor at the foot. Charles is barely visible at all, his disheveled brown hair and the shivering from under the blankets the only indication that there is someone in the bed at all.

"What's going on?" he asks, pitching the question low and at Hank.

Hank doesn't look up. "This just happens," he answers, just as low. Then he's gone, and when Erik looks down again Charles has puled the blankets away from his face. He's clutching them tight around his shoulders and neck—as tightly as he can, anyhow, and his teeth are all but chattering.

"M-my body temperature has been highly uns-s-stable…sometimes I'm too hot, and some-sometimes, like now, I c-can't get warm," he huffs out. He's squinting, trying to focus through the shudders wracking his body, but he tries to smile anyway. "I'm sorry…you m-m-may be in for a bit more than you bargained f-for."

Erik shakes his head and lowers himself to the bed, shoving himself under the layers of blankets. "It doesn't matter." He pulls himself to Charles's side, and the smaller man gratefully plasters himself to Erik's side as Erik gently pulls him in and holds on. Charles lets out a breath of relief, pressing his cheek into Erik's chest, and almost immediately the shivering diminishes.

Erik curls closer, trying to do all the good he can, and even through his socks he can feel how cold Charles's legs are. He entwines his own with them, trying to do something about it…

Until he remembers that it doesn't matter.

The heavy breath comes out unbidden, one note shy of a sob, and Charles looks up at him. "What is it?"

Charles will know if he lies.

He makes another sound, not exactly sure how it comes out. "I was trying to keep your legs warm," he admits quietly.

There's silence for a moment, and then movement and a gentle kiss on his cheek. "That's become rather secondary now, really."

Erik's jaw clenches. "That doesn't mean it didn't happen…that doesn't mean that's not my doing, as well. That doesn't make it any less…horrible…" Even if Charles wasn't dying, even if somehow Erik could find a way to save him, he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

"I know…" Charles is quiet after that. They both are. But already that's become rather par for the course. Erik holds him, sweltering again already, but it doesn't matter. He deserves so much worse than that.

"You needn't stay under here with me if you're uncomfortable," Charles murmurs eventually.

Damn him. Always straying where he shouldn't, even now. But Erik can't bring himself to be truly angry at all.

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. I know you aren't. I'll be all right…" He gives a sudden violent, involuntary shiver when he tries to shift away from Erik's body, and Erik gently but firmly hauls him back. It doesn't take much effort. Charles makes a face, but doesn't resist again. "You're so damned stubborn."

"And you aren't?"

Charles chuckles at that, but it leads to a coughing fit, and Erik doesn't like the sound of the looseness in his chest that he didn't quite notice before. But he doesn't say anything, because there wouldn't be any point. Charles stops coughing and settles against him again, still shivering a little, but after a minute or two that stops as well and he's comfortable enough once more. Erik can tell from the way Charles's breathing begins to even out that his body needs him to sleep, but just when it seems like he might really be out his fingers spasm in Erik's shirt, and then he's holding on more tightly until his grip goes slack again. And over and over.

Erik knows how he feels. Well…that part, anyway. He doesn't know about the rest. He doesn't know if he would be so seemingly calm, if he knew he was dying.

He buries his face in Charles's sweat-matted hair and speaks near the younger man's ear. "It's all right…go to sleep."

_You'll be here when I wake up? If I wake up…_

Even telepathically, the voice is small and ridiculously uncertain after the wall of composure Charles has put up since Erik arrived.

Erik's throat clogs. _You'll wake up, and I'll be here. I promise._

He isn't giving up. Tomorrow he'll think of something. He'll find a way to fix this. He isn't going to let Charles die.

Tomorrow. Right now here is where he needs to be.

* * *

Erik wakes to a frantic tugging at his mind, and an alarmingly weak pulling at his arm. Until his senses clear of sleep he can't quite see through the dimness of the bedroom, but he can hear Charles struggling to breathe beside him.

_Erik…!_

Erik sits up quickly, throwing the mussed pile of blankets off of the both of them that Charles must have been trying to push down. Charles is on his back, trying to push up off the mattress and trying to take in air and failing.

"What? What do I do!"

There are no more words in his mind; Charles doesn't seem able to form any at the moment, even that way. But he motions urgently off to the other edge of the bed, and Erik remembers the oxygen mask. The mask itself is plastic, but the thin stand it hangs on is metal. He reaches for it and brings it to him over Charles, and lets it go back to where it was once he has the mask, careful not to upset the IV.

Charles gives up trying to move and lets Erik hoist him up against his shoulder and hold the mask over his mouth and nose. He clutches weakly at Erik's hand over the plastic, breathing in and out in a shallow, jerky rhythm, and the relief that radiates from him tells Erik just how close he really was to suffocating.

Erik's chest aches realizing it, and he waits until Charles has relaxed a bit more and is breathing a little easier before he says anything.

"It's not the first time this has happened, I take it," he says roughly.

Charles is limp in his arms, looking no stronger than after the mental attack Erik burst in on yesterday. His hair is sticking to his face again. At least he doesn't seem to be cold anymore.

_No…this…the temperature changes…the trauma relapses…other things…all part of the slow and rather unorthodox mental collapse, I'm afraid. I wish I had something better to tell you._ The voice is faint, but at least it's there. _I suppose I should be grateful that it seems my actual mental faculties will be the last to go…I'm still quite myself._

"Quite," Erik chuckles weakly. It dies quickly. "Charles, there _has_ to be something we can do. You can't just—"

_If there were a way we would have found it._

Erik swallows, knowing what Charles is saying makes sense but not wanting to believe it. He refuses to let go of the chance that _something_ …

"How long have you known for sure?" he asks quietly, for argument's sake.

_It's hard to say…perhaps only two weeks since the others accepted it, but...a month or more, for me. But it seems like so much longer. Time in general has seemed to drag on so since you left._

The words are something of a slap in the face, though Charles probably doesn't mean them that way. It's more commentary than accusatory. But it hurts just the same, and he feels nearly too guilty to ask what he wants to ask then.

"Why didn't you try to find me sooner? At least after you knew…?"

Charles shakes his head, though the movement is almost imperceptible; there isn't any strength behind it. _I wanted to…but the boys were against the idea, and I…I was a coward. By the time I tried it was too late. I hadn't realized it had progressed so far, but I was too weak to manage anything more than basic short-range sensing and communication._ He scowls under the plastic mask, though in the dimness it's really only apparent in the way his brow furrows. _Not that it would have mattered much. I never would have reached you through that damn helmet anyhow._

There is barely disguised anger in that, and Erik has no defense against the veiled accusation…because this really is one.

But the anger dissipates quickly, and Erik can feel that it's gone again when Charles continues.

_Anyway…the basics are really all I have anymore._ He snorts inwardly. _Sometimes that falters, if someone isn't in immediate vicinity._

That would explain the way Charles had sounded the one time they had communicated when Erik was outside the room.

"But you tried to keep me calm before…"

_You were right here, and I know your mind very well. That's different. And a bit of calming effect has never been much more difficult than the basics anyhow._

"Please tell me they've been keeping someone in here with you." If what had just happened had happened with no one near enough…

_Of course. Hank won't have it any other way. The three of them have been taking shifts, and I'm afraid they may be more exhausted than I am. I feel awful about it, but I don't suppose there is anything I can do if they insist on it. At least you're here now…_

Erik nods, a bit unsteadily, but he hasn't thought of anything to say before there's a quiet sob from his arms.

"Charles?"

_I'm sorry. I should have tried sooner. To find you. I should have at least tried. If somehow I'd succeeded, instead of…of days, we would have—_

"Stop," he says quickly. Firstly, because he doesn't want to hear anymore about how little time Charles has left, and also because he can't bear to hear Charles blaming himself for anything when _he_ is the one who is responsible for all of this. "It isn't your fault…you're right; you wouldn't have reached me if you'd tried."

_There are other ways I could have tried to find you…ways other than telepathy. But I didn't try. I wouldn't…_ He pauses for a moment. _I lied. I wasn't only afraid. I was angry._

Erik swallows noisily. "You had every right to be angry." It almost makes him feel _better_ , to know Charles had been angry with him at _some_ point in all of this.

_But I let it get the better of me._

Erik shrugs and brushes the hair back from his forehead. "That just means that for once you weren't any better than the rest of us."

_I never said I was._

"I never said you did."

_Now you're mocking me._

Erik can't help but smile, but once the smile is there it freezes in place and he's afraid that if he lets it go he'll cry.

He can't cry. Not here. It isn't who he is now, isn't part of the image he's always tried to project, and it isn't what Charles needs from him. He can count on one hand the number of tears Charles has seen him shed, and the last thing he wants is to change that now, when Charles needs him to be strong, and to just be here.

He can't speak either, for fear that his voice will waver, and he thinks instead. _Well it's always been amusing. Why stop now?_ The last part he doesn't mean to really think, but it's there in his mind anyway and somehow he knows that Charles catches it before he can pull it back. _I may never get another chance, after all._

Charles is breathing almost normally now, and he lets his hand drop from the mask at his face and Erik knows to pull it off.

He clears his throat, so he can speak. "Are you all right?" he asks.

Charles nods wordlessly, and Erik settles him back into his pillows again, leaning over him for a moment to watch him breathing. Just to be sure.

When he reaches up Erik knows what he wants and leans down to kiss him, and Charles's fingers settle in the hair at the back of his head. He doesn't let it last for long, not wanting to make Charles short of breath again, but Charles doesn't release him and though he could pull away easily he stays where he is. Their foreheads rest together until Charles claims his lips again, more than once more in short spurts that he can handle without being quite fully recovered. When their lips aren't together Charles's breath puffs warmly against Erik's cheek, but it still isn't steady enough for Erik's liking.

"Maybe you should put that thing back on," he murmurs eventually.

Charles shakes his head stubbornly, surging weakly up to kiss him once more, but Erik carefully holds him down and kisses only his forehead instead. He sees the last few moments for what they were—Charles reacting in panic to Erik's thought, remembering how little time they have if the supposed fact that nothing can be done is true. He realizes that maybe Charles isn't as accepting of his fate as he's claimed, and his throat closes again.

Charles looks like he might want to struggle, but in the end he doesn't have the strength for it. He's having trouble breathing again, though thankfully not as awfully as before. Erik settles the mask over his face again, pulling the strap around his head to keep it in place, and lays down beside him with an arm wrapped loosely around him—enough to let Charles know he isn't going anywhere, but not enough to hinder his breaths.

"I'm sorry," Charles whispers through the plastic. It isn't clear whether he's apologizing for the small panic attack, the situation in general, or something else entirely. It doesn't really matter.

Erik pushes a little closer and presses a soft kiss to the younger man's temple. "Just breathe. Go back to sleep."

Charles is out in a matter of moments, but Erik lies awake for hours just watching his chest rise and fall.


	3. Chapter 3

Erik is there when Charles wakes up the next morning, just as he promised he would be. It's Charles who wakes _him_ , laughing quietly in his ear, and when Erik is awake enough to process more than the sensation of his lover's breath in his ear he remembers that they aren't lovers anymore. Not really. Their differences are insurmountable and Erik is only here because Charles needs him.

Because Charles is dying.

No.

His jaw clenches, but then his stomach growls loudly. Erik looks down at it accusingly, and he realizes that must be what Charles has been laughing at. Erik looks at him, and he looks just as small and pale as the day before—if not worse—but seeing the smile on his face helps.

"You need to eat," Charles tells him.

It's been almost twenty-four hours since he's eaten anything, but he didn't notice before. It didn't matter. It was Charles that was important.

"You shouldn't be alone."

"Alex is awake; he's already on his way."

Alex. Wonderful. Alex who hadn't seemed any more forgiving than Hank. Not that he deserved forgiveness.

Charles frowns, and Erik makes a face. "Forget I thought anything." The twist on the old saying makes Charles smile again, even if it's thinner this time, but it's better than nothing.

Erik claims a kiss good morning before Charles can reach for one anyway, and by the time he's crawled from the bed Alex is there.

Alex goes straight to Charles's side of the bed to ask him if he needs anything, and doesn't even look Erik's way.

Erik snorts inwardly, and promises to Charles by thought not to take long before he makes his way down to the kitchen on his own to rifle through the noticeably empty cabinets for something quick to eat. He doesn't find much, and that's when he remembers that it was Raven who saw to keeping the pantry stocked when they were all here before Cuba.

"Yeah, we need food…it'll probably be me going later."

The voice is Sean's, and Erik turns with a piece of slightly stale bread in his mouth to find the young man in the doorway.

Erik chews and swallows, studying him for moment.

"You aren't treating me like the pariah Hank and Sean seem to have decided I am. Why?"

Sean shrugs, and the slump in his shoulders from yesterday is still there. "The professor…Charles…he…we all know he wants you here. God knows we don't understand it, but he does. We knew that before we ever knew you were even going to show up. It seems kinda stupid to complicate him having the one thing he wants anymore. So…yeah. You're not gonna get any problems out of me." Then his eyes flash, and their gazes lock for a brief instant. "Not while the professor's alive, anyway."

Erik nods slowly in understanding, and Sean nods curtly back and moves around him to find some sort of breakfast for himself.

Erik quickly eats a bit more—enough to keep his stomach from complaining, anyhow—and hurries back up the stairs. When he looks in through the crack in Charles's door, though, Alex is sitting quietly in the chair by the far side of the bed and Charles has fallen back to sleep.

He takes the opportunity, and detours to Hank McCoy's lab.

Hank is there, of course, but he doesn't even turn around when Erik storms in. "What do you want?" he asks instead. The question is hard and cold, which was expected.

"How did you know it was me?" Erik questions flatly.

"Sean and Alex don't come back here. Let me guess; you want to know what we tried?"

"To start with."

Hank turns around, finally, scowling at him. "Everything. That's what we tried. We've been over this."

Erik throws out the only feasible idea he's come up with, wishing he had more. "What about another telepath?"

"The only one we know of would never even try, and we don't know where she is, anyway. Though I'm guessing you do."

He does, of course. She's back at the Brotherhood's current hideout, with Mystique and Azazel and Angel and Riptide.

"Answer the question; could another telepath help him?"

"How the hell could I even know that? I'm not telepathic. But I doubt it; Charles is exponentially more powerful than Emma Frost can ever hope to be, and if he couldn't repair the damage himself I doubt she could even touch it."

"But you don't know for sure? What if fixing it is simply something he can't do himself, because the damage is to _his_ mind? What if she _could_ help him?"

"What I said before is still true; you know she wouldn't. She would rather let him die to get rid of the competition."

Erik's fists clench. "What about something else? Is there anything else? There has to be something you considered…something you couldn't…get done…didn't have the resources for, maybe…something maybe I can—"

"There _is_ nothing else, Erik. Or should I say Magneto?"

Hank is glaring more pointedly now, and Erik realizes that the metal in the room is vibrating. He stops it, but he glares right back.

"Call me whatever you want. Just stay out of my way." It's all he can think of to say, and the only way to cover for the weakness he showed in begging for another answer just seconds before. He turns and quickly leaves Hank behind for the second time in twenty-four hours, knowing full well that his parting words didn't help to repair his image at all.

They all know by now, how closely he's tied to Charles. How much it affects him. There was never really any hiding it from them, even before he walked away.

It's only now that Erik is beginning to understand that these youngsters care about Charles just as much, even if it isn't the same type of love.

He goes back to Charles's room, and as soon as he's inside Alex stands. Charles is still asleep. Erik wonders if he imagined the hand pulling away from resting atop Charles's arm.

He didn't. The fact of how much these boys care rams itself home again, and Erik doesn't care about _them_ nearly as much but still he begins to feel guilty, too, for causing them this much pain. Unless something can be done they will lose the man that has shown them a better way…a better life, a richer one…and Erik knows how lost they will feel because he feels it too.

But much worse. Or so he thinks. He can't know for sure, because he isn't them and he isn't telepathic.

But what would his life be, what would his world be, if Charles were not in it? Whether or not they could truly be together doesn't matter. Nothing matters if Charles is not alive, _somewhere_ , just breathing, just being himself.

But what hope is there? Erik refuses to let go of hope, but he doesn't know what it is he's holding on to. If anything. What if he's holding on to nothing? What if there is no hope?

He can't process that idea now. Alex comes around the bed to leave, and the room is large but somehow he manages to roughly bump Erik's shoulder on the way out. On purpose, of course. Under any other circumstances Erik would have stopped him and made him pay for it in seconds, but not here, or now. He ignores the wordless insult and waits for the click of the door to slip back under the covers to Charles's side.

He plants a gentle kiss on the younger man's forehead, not meaning to wake him, but when he does it Charles's eyes flutter groggily open away.

"Mmm…I'm sorry. I fell asleep again, didn't I?"

"Nothing to be guilty about." Erik pushes up on an elbow, trying to do a bit of damage control on Charles's rebellious hair with his free hand.

"Did you find something to eat?"

"I found enough. How are you feeling?"

Charles winces. "That's been rather difficult to answer of late." He looks up at Erik for a while, quietly, and Erik doesn't know what he's doing so he looks back. "I'm sorry the others haven't been…polite."

"Snooping around in my head again, Charles?"

"Sorry…I can't do it as well with the boys any longer. I must admit I'm beginning to miss my powers. I never realized how much I relied on them until they were no longer reliable."

"It's all right; it was just a comment. I don't think I really have the right to deny you anything right now, anyway."

"Don't say that. Don't let me do anything that makes you uncomfortable."

Erik shakes his head. "It's fine. It doesn't matter." He points to his head. "I'm here for you, and that should mean all of me." And he means it.

Charles swallows, and his eyes are damp now. He looks away, like he did the last time, trying to cover it up or make it less obvious or something of the sort. It doesn't work, of course.

"Charles, what is it?"

He shakes his head a bit. "Nothing…I just…hearing you say that…" He has trouble putting what he means into words—or maybe just trouble getting the words past his throat. Erik prods him again, gently, wanting to know what's wrong but having an idea of the answer. A good idea.

He wants Charles to tell him.

Charles shows him, instead, the memory of the helmet and how much it hurt when Erik put it on—the barrier, the lack of trust, cutting him off. The fight on the beach. Erik hurt him to keep the damn thing. Hit him. It shouldn't have come to that.

When Charles stops abruptly, Erik's jaw is clenched. "I know. I know. I'm sorry."

Why did he do it? He still believes what he believes, but there must have been a better way.

Now they're here, and it's his fault.

"Don't," Charles says quietly. And he tugs himself up enough to claim Erik's lips. _I'm sorry._

_Stop saying that. If anyone should be saying it more, it's me._

_We could place a moratorium on it._

_We can try. I doubt it would work._

Charles chuckles against Erik's mouth, and Erik lets his elbow out from under him and pulls Charles closer, letting their bodies press together as they kiss. He doesn't mean for that to go anywhere else. It shouldn't; Charles is sick, and weak, and it's been so long and he doesn't deserve it and it's a bad idea all over but he's growing hard anyway, and what if Charles wants it? Whatever Charles wants Erik will give him, as long as however he wants it Erik can do it without hurting him.

Or maybe it's not a good idea at all. No. It's not. Charles's breath is ragged already. They have to stop. Or is that just reaction? But—he realizes now—Charles isn't hard. Not even a hint of it against his leg, and…

Oh god.

They both stop at the same moment, pushing each other away just enough to have air.

"God, Charles—"

"Erik, I can't…"

Erik falls silent, and Charles is the one to continue, still trying to catch his breath. "I can't," he gasps. "I can't…it's not…I-I should have said something. It's not p—god, Erik, I can't…" He trails off painfully, not crying, maybe just refusing too, but he doesn't. Still, he's more upset than Erik has seen him yet.

"Charles," he whispers. "I—" He wants to apologize again. He wants to say it over and over until it changes something, but it never will. There isn't any point in saying it. How much does it really mean anymore? Charles knows how sorry he is.

As if in answer to that Charles just shakes his head and presses in against Erik's chest again. This time Erik hesitates, before holding onto him in return, part of him afraid that Charles is angry—that he's only acting this way for Erik's benefit. That would be just like him. But then Charles's arms tighten around him, asking for Erik's embrace, asking for comfort, and Erik gives it to him.

"The night before Cuba…" Charles whispers at length. "I think we both knew it was the last time."

Maybe they did. Somehow. Never had they made love so long, so desperately, so fervently as that night. Erik remembers the unexplainable rush of…of something, which drove them on that night. Panic. Fear. Dread. Anxiousness. And love for each other so strong they didn't know what to do with it and they were so sure the brief happiness they'd been granted was going to be taken away but they didn't know why they knew it.

Then it happened.

Erik's throat is clogged again. He wants to give in this time, but, again, he doesn't. Tears from him would only make Charles feel worse at this point, and that isn't what he wants.

He thinks, too, that Charles won't want to kiss him anymore. That it will remind him of too much. But only moments later Charles is kissing him again purposely. Not as fervently as before, but just as sincerely.

"Are you sure?" Erik asks.

Charles nods, waiting a few more seconds before he stops to answer in words. "Might as well take what I can get," he says, trying to smile. Erik moves in to kiss him again, harder this time, so he doesn't have to try.

There isn't any danger of Erik's body reacting again. Not now. He's too upset for that. Angry, at the injustice of it all, all of this, but he pushes it down. He doesn't want to upset Charles any further.

Their mouths are all but locked together until Charles is too tired, and he lets his head drop to rest against Erik's chest again instead. He laughs weakly, and Erik doesn't know what for until he asks.

"Hmm? Oh…nothing, really. Just all those months, everything we did, and I don't think we ever really did quite that…making out like teenagers. Not quite that innocently, anyhow." He chuckles again, almost absently, and Erik huffs into his hair.

"You're almost…chipper. How do you manage that?"

He doesn't know if he would take advantage of the secret, if he knew it.

But there isn't any secret.

"It's far better than lying about feeling sorry for myself…I tried that, too. After the anger abated. It wasn't quite fun enough to consider trying again." He pauses, and when he continues it's more quiet. "Though I must admit that I wasn't as well before you came."

Erik's eyes clench shut. "Charles….what about—?"

"It wouldn't work. You know she wouldn't even try."

He has to force himself not to grind his teeth when his jaw clenches. "She would if I made her."

"That wouldn't be right."

"I don't _care_. This your _life_ we're talking about; why do _you_ care?"

"Because I do. And because I know that there would be little point in Emma attempting to help me anyhow. There is nothing she could do."

"You don't know that."

"I know enough." Charles presses closer, the not-so-quiet huffs of his breaths puffing into Erik's shirt. "Please, Erik…don't make this more complicated than it has to be. I just…need you _here_ ; I don't need you to try to save me."

"I _have_ to try. I can't _not_ try."

"You can do whatever you want to…" His breathing is becoming more labored again, rather than easier, and he trails off. "Damn." He pushes away reluctantly, and Erik doesn't know what's wrong now but he lets go.

Charles is on his back again, all but gasping for air and trying to push away the one or two remaining blankets. Erik pulls them down for him.

"Too…hot…" he gasps. His temperature fluctuating again. Or at least his perception of it. Whatever is really happening. It seems to have come on rather quickly, and Erik frowns.

"What can I do?"

Charles shakes his head a bit, already sweating. "Not much…just…water…"

There's already a half-full cup sitting on the bedside table by Charles, but there's no telling how long it's been there. Erik gets up to take it and refill it, but by the time he's walked quickly around the bed to get it Charles is tugging up at his shirt. He can't do much with it, his weak muscles keeping him from pushing off the bed long enough to pull it over his head.

Erik helps him off with it, and isn't happy at all with the unhealthy translucence of Charles's skin that is made more apparent by seeing the larger expanse of his torso—more than only his arms and head and neck. How thin he is is more obvious now, too; certainly with his ribs more visible than they should be.

Charles, though clearly miserable, smiles wryly anyway. "I know I'm not…much to look at…anymore."

Erik shakes his head, and braces his arms on the headboard so he can more easily lean down to kiss Charles briefly without touching him anywhere else. Without contributing to the amount of overheating he's already enduring.

"You will always be beautiful to me," he says softly.

It's true. Even if he didn't love Charles as fiercely as he does…he doesn't know how anyone could ever fail to see the beauty in those sapphire eyes. That, at least, he has not lost; Erik hopes it will never be lost.

Charles doesn't answer him, but he wasn't looking for an answer. Erik takes the plastic cup into the bathroom to refill it, trying to ignore the fact that it's probably plastic for a reason.

Plastic is lighter than glass. Plastic can't fall and shatter. Plastic affords a bit more friction…easier to hold on to.

A plastic cup is easier for a dying man to handle.

It's a tough material, this particular cup, but still he nearly damages it squeezing it too hard in his hand before he remembers that Charles needs the water. He takes it back quickly, and tilts the younger man's head up to help him drink. Maybe food doesn't interest him anymore, but he takes the water greedily.

It doesn't help much.

"Should I get more?"

"Isn't any point…" Charles mutters.

Erik is perched on the edge of the bed, and now that the water is gone he's made sure he's far enough away that Charles can't feel any of his body heat. Charles's chest is heaving, and he's drenched, and it's drained him to the point that he doesn't seem able to move.

Charles is right. He would just sweat it out again. As soon as this stops they can get him rehydrated. The IV should be able to help with that, too. He'll have to get Hank in here, as much as he doesn't necessarily feel like facing the young scientist again.

"How long will this last?" Erik asks anxiously.

_Don't know._

He's abandoned speech. Not a good sign.

Charles's fingers drag themselves over the sheets, and find Erik's where they rest on the bed. They curl around his. There isn't much warmth is the grip that is barely there, but Erik knows it still can't be comfortable for Charles.

"You need to—" Stay cool, he meant to say. As cool as you can, anyway. He meant to finish his sentence that way, and he meant to pull gently away, but Charles's thought interrupts him.

_Need you more._

So Erik shifts to the chair by the bed and keeps the light, twisting hold on Charles's fingers, wishing he could hold Charles to this world just as easily.

* * *

When it ends there is almost no break before Charles is cold again. Erik barely has him toweled off and into a fresh change of clothes before he's shivering. Hank temporarily removes the IV, and Erik cradles Charles in his arms near the fire at the far end of the room (it's there because it's still winter) while the boys change the sheets and things on the bed. Even bundled in a blanket and shivering, Charles is ridiculously easy to hold.

The only thing that makes it harder is the dead weight of his legs over one arm. Though they really shouldn't weight much, either. Maybe, Erik thinks, it's in his head. It must be. But he can't ask Charles if his mind is playing tricks on him; Charles isn't conscious to give him an answer. At some point he gives up wondering, and he lowers them both to the rug and clutches Charles to him there.

The boys finish making the bed and leave, and Hank is the only one who says anything. He says he'll be back later to put the IV back in.

When they're gone Erik stays where he is, with Charles, by the fire where they played so many games of chess what seems an eternity ago now. He doesn't know when Charles wakes or when, exactly, he stops shivering, but Erik realizes eventually that they're both awake and unmoving and silent, doing nothing more than taking solace in each others' presence. Someone has set a full cup of water on the ground nearby, within reach, and Erik never even noticed.

Charles seems content, but he is all but panting, and Erik takes the cup and holds it to his lips, on and off until he's drained it. He'll need more, but they don't necessarily have to move right now.

Erik doesn't really want to. Here on the carpet they can pretend that they're only sitting here because they want to. That Charles is lying heavy against him because it's been a long day of training and not because he hasn't the strength to do otherwise. Not because he can't feel his legs and he couldn't get up on his own if he wanted to.

Not because Charles is dying.

They stay there a while longer, and Charles seems just as content to let it last.

_This moment. We could freeze this one, and I think I could live in it. As long as we wanted to_ , Charles says finally. Something in it assures Erik that he says it silently only because it is more intimate that way—not because he couldn't speak if he wanted to.

_Wait…it isn't perfect yet._

There is an exhale of breath that is something short of a chuckle, and Charles is smiling a little when Erik tilts his chin up and kisses him. Charles frees a hand from the blanket cocoon to let it rest softly against Erik's cheek.

The moment is perfect then.


	4. Chapter 4

They don't move from the floor by the fire until Charles is panting again; he needs more water. Erik gently scoops him up, then, and carries him back to the bed. This time when he carries Charles the younger man's arms are around his neck because the blanket has fallen to free them, and Charles's hair brushes his chin. Erik pulls the blanket out from under him once he's settled on the bed, and covers him up before he goes back for the cup to fill it again.

He sits on the edge of the bed when he comes back, at Charles's side to hold his head up and help him drink, but this time he doesn't have to worry about being too close. Charles's body temperature has stabilized for now. He refills the cup two more times, and the last time half a glass is left on the bedside table. Erik, though, stays where he is even then, holding Charles's hand and rubbing gentle circles over the back of it with his thumb.

Charles watches him quietly, and they're both content this way, too.

But then Charles is gripping his hand tightly, and he can't move it, and Charles is squeezing so much it hurts, and Erik doesn't understand until Charles's body goes rigid, and he starts screaming.

Just like yesterday.

Only this time he knows what it is.

"Charles! Oh god—" Erik pulls him up in his arms and holds him there, against his chest, but still Charles is stiff and taught. After a moment his arms push jerkily around Erik and fingers knot in the back of his turtleneck, but the screams are just as loud. They sound just the same and they're against Erik's shoulder, so near his ears—full-throated and helpless and nothing but agony, pure and simple.

Erik thinks he might go deaf, but that doesn't matter. It would be the least of what he deserves.

"Charles…" he sobs dryly.

He caused this, and this time he knows it. Charles's screams almost took him apart the last time, and this time he knows while he hears them that the pain is his doing. This time each one slices through him without mercy, and his arms tighten around Charles's stiff body with each passing second. Erik doesn't say anything else, because he knows there isn't any reaching Charles until this has passed. He can do nothing but hold on, and listen, and oh god knowing the truth makes it so much worse this time.

This time, for the first time since he came here, Erik cries.

It only takes a moment, really, before he's sobbing into the hollow at Charles's neck and shoulder. The sobs shake him so violently, rattling his ears, that he nearly doesn't notice the moment when Charles goes limp in his arms and falls silent. Even when he notices, he can't stop. Charles's arms drop from around him and the smaller man in hanging in his grasp, but all Erik has the presence of mind to do is shift a hand up to keep his head from lolling.

"Erik…" The voice is small and breathless, but there, and it tells him Charles is conscious. Barely, but conscious.

Erik forces himself to calm and loosen his grip a bit, but it's a while longer before he can speak. When he does, it comes out in a gasp. "It should be me. God, Charles, I'm sorry…it should be me…"

"Wouldn't…wish this on anyone…" Charles manages. "Certainly…not you."

"I _did_ this," Erik hisses quietly.

_Doesn't matter anymore…Erik, don't do this to yourself. Please…it won't change anything…and…and it hurts, to feel you hating yourself._

He cries more softly now, for a little longer, and Charles lets him. After a little while his arms come back up, to clutch weakly at Erik's sleeves.

When he finally lowers Charles back to the mattress again, Erik goes with him, stretching out at his side. Charles turns his head into Erik's chest, looking up at him worriedly.

"Are you…all right?"

"Am _I_ all right?" Erik scoffs incredulously.

"I've never…seen you like…like that." His sentences are still broken, still trying to catch him breath. And he's using what words he has the air for to ask if _Erik_ is all right, after what just happened.

How the _hell_ , Erik wonders, does he deserve for this man to love him?

Charles's limp hair has fallen in his face again, and Erik pushes it back. When he does, Charles weakly catches his hand and twines their fingers together. Erik relents to that, at least, but he won't have any of the questions.

"You shouldn't be worried about me, Charles." He frowns worriedly, the set expression trembling instead because part of him still wants to be crying. "Was it supposed to happen again that soon?" he asks. His voice shakes, too. It's nearly imperceptible, but he knows Charles notices.

"It's…they've gotten closer together…but…never quite that close, no…I don't suppose that can be good…"

"Damnit…"

Erik pulls him closer, tucking Charles's head under his chin, and Charles doesn't protest. It makes Erik feel better, to have Charles safely tucked there against him, but…also, it's easier to hide that his eyes are still damp. He keeps Charles there, and Charles seems happy to stay until his breaths begin to come shorter.

This time Erik reaches for the oxygen mask before he asks for it, and settles the strap gently over his head. After that Charles remains on his back to make it easier for him, but Erik stays at his side, his head resting on Charles's shoulder and their fingers still entwined.

* * *

Hank comes back to get the IV back into Charles's arm, but after that they're alone. When Charles has enough energy again they talk some, about nothing really—old memories that aren't so old, because they've known each other only months, but most of them seem like a lifetime ago.

Only the memories of the beach seem so achingly close. Erik wishes they didn't, but there isn't any way to change that. What happened there is the reason they're here now.

"I still can't believe you pushed Sean off of that satellite dish…" Charles mutters at one point.

"You would have done the same if he'd stood there any longer."

The answer is indignant. "I would not!"

A smirk. "You keep telling yourself that."

Charles tells him when Sean returns from town—and that Alex went with him, actually—but it's after nightfall before he convinces Erik to go find something to eat again. Even then, he won't go until Sean has come in to keep an eye on Charles. Erik stays away a bit longer this time even though he hadn't wanted to leave, and it's probably because the one upstairs _is_ Sean. He has a bit more sympathy for the youngest and kindest of the boys.

The last thing Sean said the last time they spoke doesn't bother him. He would feel the same way, if their roles were reversed, and Sean, at least, has the will to better respect Charles's wishes for now. Erik respects _that_ , and appreciates it.

Not that he blames Hank and Alex for hating him and showing it. He welcomes it, really; he knows he deserves it. He just wishes it didn't hurt Charles. Charles hasn't said anything, of course, but Erik knows it does.

When he goes back he nods to Sean, and on the way out the red-haired boy nods back and doesn't do anything so childish as shoving. He simply leaves, smiling back at Charles once before he's gone. Though this time, because it's Sean, Erik doesn't bother to wait until the door clicks to climb back into the bed. Charles smiles at him, but doesn't reach for him, and Erik realizes that his hands and forearms are trembling. He's clutching them around his chest to minimize the shaking.

"Are you cold?" he asks.

"No…" Charles shakes his head. "Another side-effect, I'm afraid."

Erik raises an eyebrow. "Is there anything else I should know?"

Charles mimics the eyebrow move. "Have I mentioned that I love you?"

Erik lets out a weak laugh and kisses him slowly, savoring the taste and trying to lock it away in his memory. He never wants to lose it.

"Well," Charles quietly, "I suppose that will do for a good night."

"Tired?" Charles nods wearily, and a shiver goes through him and he glances down at his shaking arms in tired annoyance. Erik pulls him in close, the way he did the night before.

_But I wish I didn't HAVE to sleep._

Erik swallows. "I know."

After a while the shaking stops, and Charles falls asleep anyway.

* * *

The flashbacks come again, during the night, waking up the rest of the house along with them, and that would have been awful enough, but it happens again the middle of the next morning. By then Erik has learned to keep himself together, because that is what's needed from him, but after three occurrences in the same twenty-four hours Charles is fraying around the edges. It seems as if he might truly cry for the first time since Erik has come back, and he temporarily abandons the standing request that they not discuss blame or the beach or anything of the sort.

Erik doesn't protest, because Charles certainly has the right to leave it by the wayside if he wishes.

" _Why_?" Charles gasps. His eyes are full, and his fingers still grip in spasms at the sheets as if to squeeze away the memory of the pain that only receded mere moments before. " _Why_ did you have to kill him?"

Erik could give the answers he gave before—before all of this, before Cuba, because they're still true—but they would sound ridiculous now, after what's come of what he did. "I'm sorry." The answer is small and broken, and all he can get out.

"You're…you're sorry it's…hurting me. You aren't…sorry you killed him." Charles's eyes clench shut and he groans quietly. He tries to take a deeper gulp of air, but his breath stutters.

"I—" He stops, because he can't say anything to that. It's the truth. "What else do you want me to say?"

_I don't know. I know that won't change. I know it can't be taken back. You've already made that choice, but it does not mean you have to make more like it. The future is not written; you can live the rest of it differently._

Erik blinks. "You want me to stay here, don't you?" He pauses before he can tack on the next bit. "After."

_Not necessarily._

"You know they would never let me stay. Not without you here. They'll never forgive me, and they shouldn't anyway."

_Stop it. And you don't have to stay here to make the right choices. You can do that anywhere. I don't care where. I just…god, Erik, I'm so afraid for you._

"What do you mean?"

_If you continue on the path you've started down, there will be nothing but more trouble, and pain, and I want MORE than that for you._

Erik swallows. "I won't be happy. You can't think I'll ever be happy." He regrets the pained expression that flickers across Charles's face, but he couldn't bring himself to lie about that.

"Why not?" Charles whispers. He has his breath back now, for the most part.

"You know the answer to that."

"Erik…" It's a plea, and Erik hates to silence him, but he'll never be able to give a better answer so there isn't any other choice. He does it with his lips, to make up for doing it at all, and Charles sobs quietly against his mouth before he responds.

Still, though, Charles doesn't really cry.

* * *

Charles falls asleep again, soon after that, though it's hardly the middle of the day—a sleep he needs thanks to his body's exhaustion, but a light, fitful one that seems to refuses to settle into anything deeper and more helpful.

Erik is used to blaming himself by now; he blames himself for that, too, knowing that Charles was still upset when he drifted off.

He will never make up for this. Not for any small part of it. None of it. His hope has been slipping away, helplessly watching Charles's pain, and he knows he's killed the man he loves. There has been nothing wrong or incorrect in the angry words Hank and Alex have thrown at him. He only wonders if there is anything he can do at all.

Charles moans in his sleep, his brow furrowing a bit, and his breath becomes shorter yet again, though it's different this time; it's shorter, but it doesn't seem to be that way necessarily because it's harder. Soon enough he wakes again, pushing away from Erik and onto his back as he tries to process what's happening. Erik watches him warily, a hand around his arm, when suddenly Charles's eyebrows knit together and his jaw is tight.

"Charles? What's…? Oh god don't tell me it—"

But the screaming doesn't start, and Charles's body is still mostly limp on the bed, though he's starting to tremble a bit. He lets out a heavy, unsteady breath now, shaking his head slowly. "No…it's not that. It's just…it's nothing. Nevermind."

He's working his jaw loose, trying to relax, but his eyebrows refuse to unknot and the short breaths and uncomfortable shifting and clenched hands betray him.

"You're in pain." Erik knows he sounds as if he is himself when he says it, but there isn't anything he can do about it. "I don't understand. Why…?"

"It…it isn't the first time…just…uhm…more misfiring…another of the uhm…the glitches…" It comes out rather ineloquently, which tells Erik just how much Charles must be hurting if he can't string together a fully coherent sentence. Certainly, it isn't anything near what Charles experiences when the relapses come—but neither can it be a mere trifle.

He knows it makes just as much sense as the other effects—temperature control, movement, pain receptors, all in the brain—but it doesn't seem fair at all. Charles goes through enough in the flashbacks. Why does this have to happen, too?

Charles manages a tight smile. "If you say you're sorry, I believe I may have to cause you bodily harm."

It debatable as to what makes that more funny—whether it's simply that it's Charles saying it, or that he couldn't if he wanted to. Erik lets himself smile back because he knows Charles wants him to, but he can't muster any more than the thin one he produces.

"Tired of hearing it, then?" Erik asks apologetically.

"Quite," Charles sighs. He swallows. "I uhm… _I_ apologize…I said I didn't want to…discuss those sorts of…of things, earlier, and then—"

"It doesn't matter. It's all right."

Charles nods once, but then his eyes shut quickly and a pained grunt escapes his throat.

"Charles?" Erik asks urgently. He pulls Charles closer again, feels him trembling against him—above the waist, anyhow, and he swallows again—and Charles shrugs helplessly and groans into Erik's neck.

"Just this…this is all you can...do…"

"It's not enough," Erik whispers.

It takes too long, for Charles to relax again, for the pain to go away. Erik brings him water and lets him rest, not bothering him though he isn't really asleep. He just stays at his side, their shoulders pressed together, and knows he has to do more than this.

He knows Charles is more awake again when a thin hand slides into his and squeezes a bit.

"You haven't eaten today," Charles chastises quietly.

"And I'm not going now. I can eat something after you've gone to sleep tonight; you'll never know I was gone."

Erik looks at him, and Charles raises an eyebrow. "I'll also know tomorrow if you never went." A playful threat.

Erik tries to laugh and has to stop before he chokes on it. "That's my Charles," he whispers instead. He pushes up on his side on an elbow, and leans over him to kiss the man he fell in love with in the water off the coast of Florida. Of course, he didn't know it then. He was stubborn; it took him time and quite enough of Charles's help to figure it out.

Charles's hands curl up around his face, and Erik slips the hand he isn't bracing himself up on under Charles's t-shirt.

Charles pulls in a sharp breath, tugging his lips away. "What are you—?"

He's planned this, while lying quietly until now, but now that he's here he doesn't know how to explain himself "I…I want to give you something. Anything," Erik breathes against Charles lips. "There's so much…god, so much pain, and I know I can't take it away but…can I give you something? Will it even work?"

He feels Charles at the edge of his mind, trying to understand, still tired and not quite as quick on the uptake as he would be otherwise, and Erik lets him in willingly, to show him what he means. _Can you do that? If I…can you take it from me?_

_You, at least. I don't know about anyone else anymore…but I think I could still share your sensations easily enough,_ Charles tells him, understanding now.

"Can you take all of it?" Erik asks aloud, softly. "Can you take it just for yourself?" He doesn't want this to be about him at all.

_I don't know…I could try, but…_

"More trouble than it would be worth?"

Charles nods, pulling in another breath when Erik rubs a thumb over a nipple that is already hardening. Erik kisses his neck up and down, still rubbing in slow circles. Charles shivers under him, but for the first since he's been here it is definitely in a good way.

_But I could share. With you, at least, I know I could do that, but are you sure…?_

_I'm sure._

And he straddles Charles and balances himself on his knees now, to have both hands under Charles's shirt, caressing him, rubbing, kissing his neck and collarbones and lips and finally pushing the shirt up and out of the way almost entirely, enough that he can nip and lick at the stiff buds he's worked easily to that point with his thumbs.

With his mouth there his hands are free to trace down Charles body again, and with Charles's fingers tangled in his hair he assaults every place he ever learned that Charles is ticklish, every place Charles has ever liked to be touched…everything above his waist. He swallows back the lump that threatens to form in his throat and determines to give Charles every real sensation he can have before the rest has to be shared, taken from him.

He can feel Charles slipping into his mind, bringing them closer together until Charles is feeling what Erik is feeling. Erik gets an echo of strangeness, that Charles can feel Erik's hands and mouth on him and feel Erik's side of it as well, until he adjusts. Erik gives him time to, knowing this isn't going to be perfect but it's really the only course open to them.

The foreplay is doing its job; Charles's gasps and small moans of pleasure and the tugging in his hair are making him hard, though he doesn't want to go any farther until he's given attention to every inch of skin that Charles can still feel.

Charles, though, can feel the growing erection through Erik's mind, and he has other ideas.

" _Erik…_ " he hisses finally. The tone is familiar, from so many memories that Erik is glad he has, though they hurt now. The meaning is simple—stop teasing, damnit. Erik smiles into the skin at Charles's side, and traces his hands up to rub over the sensitive nipples once more before he reaches between his own legs. The zipper and button undo themselves, and all he needs do is pull himself out into the air and begin to stroke.

Charles's gasp is low and appreciative; he's doing it the way Charles likes, rather than the way he himself prefers. It's a strange balance, trying to remember that this is for Charles when his body wants it so badly for himself now. He tries to draw it out the way he usually wouldn't bother to if he were only doing this for himself, kissing Charles even as his hand works. Charles clutches at his shoulders, his face, kissing him in return, keeping him near, and Erik doesn't mind.

"I love you," he whispers. "I always will."

It isn't the sort of thing he ever really said, before. It was Charles who said such things aloud, and Erik didn't have to. Charles knew. But it doesn't feel strange to say it; it feels long overdue.

Erik is nearing the edge, trying to hold back again, clenching his jaw against it, wanting this to last longer. But Charles's head falls back and he cries out.

"Erik, please…!"

His hand is moving faster of its own accord anyhow; soon enough he's coming. He keeps his jaw locked…lets Charles do the shouting, and tips over beside him, trembling, riding the rest of the wave quietly for the most part while Charles is anything but. It's more than difficult to give Charles that; the orgasm is magnified by Charles in his mind, feeling it, and Erik knowing what Charles feels too and it becomes a feedback loop that draws it out and makes it so much more intense for both of them than it would have been otherwise and for a moment everything is white.

It seems like during all those months they would have done this before, sex while connected like this, but they never did.

When Erik orients himself again he leans over Charles, kissing his lips and his cheeks and the tears at the corners of his eyes that budded there from the intensity of sharing Erik's orgasm.

"Do you feel any better?" he asks softly.

Charles gives him a tired, contented smile and a small, breathless laugh. "I believe I'm a mess." He's right. Erik's come is all over his stomach.

"Sorry," he smirks. He kisses Charles again, long and lingering, and Charles is more than willing, but he's worn out now. Erik tucks himself back in and gently scoops the smaller man up in his arms. With his hands occupied, he carefully uses his powers to take the needle from Charles's arm and hang the end of the tube over the stand. "Come on…we both need a bath, anyway."

Charles nods against his sleeve, eyes already closed.

In the bathroom Erik turns the water in the tub on without touching the nobs, and uses his powers to assist in divesting them both of their clothing so that he doesn't have to let go of Charles any more or for any longer than necessary. Erik climbing into the warm water with him wakes Charles up at first, and he smiles as Erik settles him between his legs and lets him rest back into his chest. The tub is big, and there aren't really any problems after that.

Erik tries not to think about the fact that it's easy, too, because even though Charles can't help him much, he's so light now.

He saves Charles's hair for last, and takes his time scrubbing it. More than anything else, Charles likes this. It soothes him, and even when Erik is done and he's dipped water over Charles's head to wash the shampoo and conditioner away, Charles rests again him and he rubs gently at the temples under that dark floppy hair that he loves so much. They're both clean but they don't move, and at this point Erik isn't sure Charles really could if he wanted to.

From where he is Erik summons the plug from the bottom of the tub just long enough to drain half of the water, and then turns the nobs to let more warm water in. So they don't _have_ to move but Charles won't catch cold.

It's happened so often, moments like these that he wants to hold on to.

But moments can't last forever, and neither can Charles. Erik knows that he can't pretend this will last, that Charles won't die if he doesn't do something. But everyone tells him that there isn't anything to be done. People who would know otherwise, if there were an otherwise.

"Thank you."

Charles's soft voice startles him out of his thoughts, and Erik kisses the side of his head. "It doesn't have to be the last time," he murmurs.

"I don't know if I would...have the energy for that…again. But thank you, I…needed that. I needed you...one more time."

Erik blinks rapidly, finally giving up and closing his eyes.

At least the night before Cuba wasn't the last time. Not anymore.

Oh god, he can't do this. He can't let Charles go. He can't give up. He'll go crazy if he does.

"I'll stay here as long as I can." It's barely a whisper, but Erik hears it and he bites back a sob. He stuff his thoughts in a box and locks them away, knowing Charles must have seen them, to say that.

When the silence has lasted too long, he knows it's time to get out of the bath, and he pulls the plug out again.

"We should get dressed."


	5. Chapter 5

There is already a pile of clean pajamas on a shelf in the bathroom, and Erik dries them both off and dresses Charles. The clothes, though, won't fit him, and he ties an extra towel around his waist and takes the time to dry Charles's hair, too, before carrying him back out into the bedroom. The last thing he needs is a cold on top of everything else.

It may be ridiculous to worry about such a thing at this point, but Erik doesn't care.

He drapes Charles carefully over one of the armchairs by the fire, doing it that way because Charles has long since lost the strength to sit up on his own. There isn't anywhere else to put him while Erik changes the sheets on the bed.

"Do you want a blanket?" he asks, before he dares to leave the younger man there, even though he'll only be across the room.

"I'm fine for now," Charles says. His voice is barely more than a whisper and his eyelids are falling, and Erik can tell he'll be asleep soon.

Erik nods and runs his fingers through the soft chocolate hair, clean now and dried fluffy, the way he remembers it and the way it should be. He leans down to kiss it, lingering to breathe in the scent he'd grown used to before everything went to hell. Charles hums quietly in appreciation, especially when Erik's mouth trails down to his lips. The corners of his mouth are quirked up when Erik pulls back to look at him.

"All clean now…am I handsome again?" he asks playfully.

Erik snorts and kisses his forehead. "You always were—having you clean is just a bonus."

_You're an awful liar._

_I'm a wonderful liar; you're just too smart for your own good._

_The telepathy helps, too._

_And that._

He kisses the dark circles under Charles's eyes, to assure him they don't matter, and moves off to change the sheets. By the time he's finished Charles is asleep in the chair, and Erik moves him carefully to the bed without waking him. He goes back to the next room to find clothes for himself, then.

He doesn't make it to the desk at the far wall, where the bag with his clothes is. Erik drops to his knees just short of it, chest already heaving, and collapses back against the foot of the bed. He pulls his towel-clad knees to his chest and hugs them, at first trying not to weep and then giving in anyway. It doesn't matter. Charles is asleep and no one is here; he doesn't have to be Magneto or anyone else.

* * *

Two more days pass, and Erik still never leaves Charles's side unless nature calls or it's to check in with Azazel or to eat while the younger man is sleeping. He doesn't eat much. He has to choke down what he does make himself eat. He really only does it to keep his stomach from growling, and to keep Charles from using what little energy he has to scold him. When Charles is awake enough to talk, Erik would rather they talk about something else.

Both of them have less and less energy as the time passes, as Charles's various attacks increase in length and frequency. Erik, though, can replenish his. Charles, really, can't. As often as he sleeps, it's usually fitful, and what good sleep he does get is little help anymore.

Two nights after they were together, it is late and Erik is holding a shivering Charles to his chest. The blankets are piled over them again and Charles is so cold this time it must be hurting him. He's moaning, breath catching at irregular intervals, and it takes until the shivering stops for Erik to realize that it wasn't that being cold was hurting him; he had been cold, but he had been in pain at the same time, and his temperature has normalized now but he is still hurting.

These things are beginning to happen more than one at a time now. That cannot not be a good sign.

Erik holds him and massages his back until even after Charles falls quiet again, hoping it's enough comfort to make any difference at all. Charles is silent for a while, when it's over, and when he speaks his voice is uneven and it's clear that he understands, too, that things are growing worse and his time is limited.

"R-Raven," he whispers. "My sister. I need to…see my sister."

Erik nods into his shoulder, having expected that any time now. "When Azazel comes tomorrow I'll have him bring her."

"Only if…she wants to come…"

"She'll come. She's missed you; I know she has. I think the only reason she hasn't checked on you before now is for the same reason I never did."

Charles, still clinging to him, rolls back just enough to look at him. "And what reason was that?"

Erik is ashamed to admit it, now that he knows what it was. "I was afraid."

Charles sighs weakly. "I'm sorry to have to tell you that if you'd come those first few weeks you would have had something to be afraid of. I would have lashed out at you."

Which means, really, that maybe it's better this way. Maybe it's better that he waited. That's what Charles is saying. He's still trying to make Erik feel better. But the part that isn't better, of course, is that Charles is dying.

Charles must sense the turmoil in him, because he claims Erik's lips and keeps them for a few long minutes, which Erik has no qualms with. When they finally pause longer than just to breathe Charles lets his head roll back on his pillow again, and Erik can see that he's worn out again merely from that. It sends a stab of pain through his chest, and he doesn't think it shows on his face but Charles reaches for him anyway. His fingers are thin and cold, but still as soft as they ever were, and he brushes them over Erik's cheek and nose and brow, and Erik can feel Charles at the edges of his mind, too.

Erik watches Charles look at him, and says softly, "What are you doing?"

Charles meets his eyes and smiles sheepishly, tiredly. "I don't know. Looking for hope, maybe."

Erik knows he doesn't mean hope for a way to save his own life. He knows the telepath gave up on that long ago. "You're still worried about me?"

"Always," Charles whispers.

* * *

When Erik wakes the next morning Charles isn't in his arms. He panics, sitting up quickly, but a soft sound draws his attention to the edge of the bed. Charles is there, turned over on his stomach and facing away and…

He's crying. Really crying, for the first time since Erik came here again. He's sobbing into the mattress, and Erik doesn't ask questions. His only thought is to give comfort, and he quickly pushes himself across the expansive surface of the king-sized bed and gathers Charles in his arms from behind.

Charles is upset enough that he doesn't sense Erik coming. He's startled, jerking when Erik touches him, but then he relaxes and he lets himself be drawn against Erik's chest.

"I'm here," Erik says softly. "I'm here." He doesn't ask for an explanation but Charles offers one anyway. He forces the tears back long enough to choke out a sentence.

"I can't see."

Erik stiffens, his breath freezing in his throat. "Wh…what?"

"I c-can't see," Charles sobs, and he's so weak by now that even as upset as he is it isn't very loud. "What…if it never comes back? What if isn't…just a fluke? I'll n-never see you again. I won't…won't be able to see Raven. I sh-should have asked you to bring her sooner. I—" He cuts off and gives up trying to explain, just crying.

Erik swallows back the growing lump in his throat and holds Charles tighter. "I'm so sorry…" he gasps. It takes a long time for Charles to calm, and Erik can't blame him for that. When Charles is mostly calm he tries to turn over, and Erik helps until Charles is facing him. He smooths the younger man's hair back and can't help wincing at the damp eyes that aren't focusing on anything. "I'm sorry," he says again, because he doesn't know what else to say.

Charles reaches for his face again, the way he did last night, but this time rather than supplementing sight the touch is replacing it. "I want to see you again," he whispers brokenly. Then the tears spill over again, and he's crying more quietly this time but it doesn't hurt any less to see it. When he speaks again his voice has dropped once more, barely audible now. "I don't want to die."

A sob rips itself from Erik's throat. "Oh god, Charles…" It's strangled; he doesn't know when he'll ever be able to breathe again. Before he really knows it he's sobbing, too, into Charles's shoulder, and Charles is still clinging to him and the front of his shirt is damp.

"Why did you never just say that?" Erik asks later, after they've both been silent for an uncertain stretch of time. "God knows you deserve to be upset."

"It was easier not to," Charles admits softly. "It was easier to pretend I was all right. I'd been angry…I tried sullen…I couldn't bear to just…be upset. I knew that wouldn't make it any easier for the others, either. Crying wouldn't do anything anyhow…so I tried acceptance. By now I thought I wasn't pretending anymore…I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." Their foreheads rest together on the pillows, and Erik is stroking Charles's hair and staying close so Charles knows he's there and he isn't planning to go anywhere. The fingers of his other hand are tangled with Charles's hands between them. But Charles doesn't need to be talked to now, because there isn't anything Erik can say to make it better, so he doesn't say anything else. He listens.

"I thought I would have more time. As lonely as it seemed it would be, after the beach, I thought I had most of my life ahead of me. I…I wanted to do so much more than I've been able to… I wanted to make a difference…"

Erik remembers the discussions they had before Cuba. He remembers the talks they had, about anything and everything, that lasted long into the night whether they were playing chess before a fire or wrapped in each other's arms. He remembers the ideas Charles had. He remembers that Charles wanted to do more to help other mutants, once Shaw was no longer a threat.

"I'd decided to try to start that school here, but then the symptoms began and then…when we knew what it was…" Charles clears his throat and coughs, swallowing hard. "Hank and Sean and Alex have agreed to do it. To try, at least. I made them promise me they were only doing it because they wanted to…I didn't want them to do it only because I'd wanted it."

"Are they?"

"No…they haven't lied to me. They want to. I'm…leaving everything to them, Erik. To give them the best chance of success. It could help so many young mutants, to have a place to be with others like them and to freely work to learn to control their powers…"

Erik nods a bit, knowing Charles can feel it where their heads are pressed together. "It could. It's a beautiful dream, Charles. I thought so the first time you brought it up, just as a possibility."

That had been so long ago. Or it seems like so long ago. Even the day he came back seems a lifetime ago now.

Charles huffs a bit. "You could have said something."

"I did. You weren't listening; you were too excited about the idea. You wouldn't shut up." Charles tries to laugh and ends up coughing again, grimacing and whimpering when it wracks his body too hard. "Hey, hey, take it easy…"

He isn't really listening now, either. He's trying to catch his breath and speak at the same time, and it isn't working well. "I just…I just…"

"You want to be here to see it," Erik says quietly, throat tight again.

Charles lets out a small sob, and a few stray tears drip from his eyes. Erik kisses them away, the taste of salt—the taste of sorrow—nearly sending him over the edge again. _I'm so sorry,_ he thinks yet again. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…_ buthis thoughts trail off when gentle but trembling fingers trace over his face again. It tickles. It feels good, but knowing what it means and why Charles has to do that—instead of seeing him—hurts.

_But it's good that you're here. I think it would be much worse if you weren't here. God knows what state I'd be in._

"Oh, Charles…" Erik moans.

They wait all day, clinging to each other and to the last few shreds of hope, but Charles's sight does not return.

* * *

By the time Azazel is to check in Charles has had two relapses, a hot spell paired with muscle spasms, and a long and severe cold spell along with a bout of breathlessness that required the oxygen mask. Not necessarily in that order. He is no longer upset—just exhausted—and he wants his sister to arrive. He wants to tell Raven himself, but he makes Erik promise to bring her to the room, so that he can see her through Erik's eyes.

"Why can't you use my eyes when I go to get her and send her up?"

"I won't be able to do it until you're close…

Erik hasn't bothered to change before meeting Azazel, because he knows the teleporter does not judge as much as the others and does not speak unnecessarily. Emma will have heard nothing to make her think differently of him. He pads down the stairs as he does every afternoon, in his socks, and seconds after he reaches the bottom and crosses into the foyer there is a puff and the smell of sulfur and Azazel is there. He appears ready to leave again, probably expecting the same thing he has heard for days now—"I'm not ready to return yet; you may go"—but that isn't what Erik says today.

"I need you to bring Mystique and leave her here with me, and continue to check back at the usual time."

The teleporter merely nods and disappears, as per usual. When he reappears he has Raven by the blue-scaled wrist, which she yanks away from him.

"What are you _doing_ , where—damnit." She stops and swears when she sees where she is, and she glares when she spots Erik standing there, just waiting. She eyes the civilian clothing, but then Azazel disappears again and she lets out a squeak of protest. But there is nothing she can do, and her angry gaze quickly returns to Erik. "Erik, what the hell?"

"Charles needs to see you."

"Is this where you've _been_ the whole time? How _could_ you—!"

Erik wraps a hand around her upper arm. "Raven." The name and the urgency either in his face or in his voice makes her listen to him this time. She shuts up, and she looks at him warily. "Charles needs to see you," he repeats. "You need to see him."

"Erik? What's going on?"

He shakes his head. "I...I told him he didn't have to tell you himself—it's my fault anyway, all of it—but he insisted it would be better if you heard it from him."

"Heard _what_ from him? What's wrong? Erik?"

Rather than angry now, she's frightened, and Erik winces apologetically and leads her up the stairs. "He's in his room."

From the corner of his eye he sees her staring at him for a moment or two more, climbing the stairs beside him. Then something in her face changes and she yanks her arm away and breaks past him, running the rest of the way ahead of him and barreling through the master bedroom door. "Charles!"

Erik hurries after her. "Raven!" By the time he makes it through the door Raven is frozen just inside, the way he'd been when he first came. He knows what she's seeing, and how she doesn't understand.

At least this time Charles isn't screaming.

"Charles…?"

Erik feels Charles pushing into his mind, asking for permission to use his eyes now, and he gives it. When he knows it's working, that Charles can see what he's seeing, he rests a hand on Raven's arm and she looks at him sharply.

''What's wrong with him?" she asks fearfully.

The relief Erik is feeling isn't his own. It's Charles, happy to see his sister's face again. It takes a moment to fight back the new lump in his throat, trying to keep Charles's emotions and his own in check. In the end he doesn't have to say anything.

"Raven?"

Charles asks for her and she breaks away from Erik again to go to the edge of the bed. Erik follows slowly, not wanting to intrude but keeping Raven in view. She sits beside her brother and reaches for his hand, and his eyes are closed and she must think he hasn't seen her yet because before she takes his hand she shifts. Suddenly she is the young human girl no one has seen since the day before Cuba, complete with clothing.

"Charles? I'm right here. What's going on? Are you okay?"

Charles's head shifts toward her but he keeps his eyes closed, probably not wanting to shock her. He can see, of course, what she's done, through Erik's eyes, and he frowns and rubs a thumb over the back of the smooth hand in his.

He opens his eyes then, and sighs wearily. "You don't have to do that," he says quietly. "It doesn't matter anymore."

She shifts back in shock when she draws in a breath. "Charles, what…?"

"It's going to take a bit to explain…" He reaches up and finds her scaled face, and she covers his hand with her free one. He smiles a little. "First I…Raven, even if I could see you on my own I wouldn't want you to change yourself because of me. You're beautiful just as you are…you always have been. I didn't tell you that enough. I'm sorry."

Raven swallows. "Charles, wh…?"

"I'm using Erik's eyes."

She looks up at him, and Erik wishes he could school his features but she must see something on his face that tells her that something is wrong. The face Charles sees is only confused for a few more brief seconds, before her eyes fill and she looks down at her brother again.

"What's wrong?" she asks tightly, and Erik recognizes the same desperate tone he heard from himself, that first day.

Charles lets out a heavy breath. "Erik, could you…give us a moment? Please? Thank you…"

"I won't be far," he promises. He feels Charles pulling away from his mind, away from his eyes, and he goes, leaving brother and sister to themselves.

* * *

When Raven finds him Erik is farther down the second-floor corridor, in an alcove with a window that looks out over the grounds. He can see the satellite dish from here—the one Charles first helped him move.

He hears her coming, of course, her footfalls, but he doesn't turn until she's on him. "Raven…"

He's cut off by the fist to his face, and considering that reaction he expects more blows and doesn't even mind but none come. He looks up, wiping his bottom lip with his sleeve and Raven isn't moving. She's standing beside him, fists clenched at her sides and eyes blazing with anger and pain, but when he looks at her she doesn't move to strike him again.

She breaks into tears, instead, and by the force of them he knows she's held them back until now. She wouldn't let herself cry in front of her brother.

"We shouldn't have left!" she wails. "This isn't what I wanted! This isn't what I wanted…"

Erik pulls her into his arms and lets her cry, because he can't really apologize. He can't make it right. "This isn't what anyone wanted," he agrees. "I would do _anything_ if I could fix this. Anything…"

Inwardly he asks himself again if that's true, and it is.

* * *

"Charles, _please_. You have to let us see if Emma can—"

"Must I tell you again that there would be no point in it?"

The middle of the night, now, and Raven is asleep on Charles's other side, an arm drawn protectively around her brother. Erik holds him from his side, pressing kisses into the younger man's hair and pleading, because he is well past the point of caring much about dignity.

"How would there be no point?"

"She wouldn't be able to do anything, you would have to force her to even try, and…Erik, even if she could…it's been too long. I'm too weak. God knows if I would ever be truly healthy again. Losing my legs is one thing, but that…I couldn't live like that," Charles admits quietly.

Damnit. Erik wishes he didn't have a point.

_Charles…_

He pleads silently, not really knowing what he's pleading for anymore. _Think of something else. Or get over your damned morality. Something. Anything. Don't leave me._ Those thoughts he tries to keep to himself, but he isn't sure he succeeds.

Charles's face presses into his neck, and a hand comes up to Erik's cheek. "It's all right," Charles whispers.

"No it isn't," Erik hisses harshly.

And Charles smiles, just a little, sightless eyes looking off at nothing as he caresses Erik's face. "If this weren't happening, you wouldn't be here. If I got better, you would leave. Maybe I'm still afraid to leave myself, but that almost makes it all worth it."

Erik gives a pained snort. "Almost?"

"Sorry…just being realistic."

"Since when are you realistic? Damned Oxford graduate…"

Charles chuckles weakly, and his eyelids droop. "Mmm…tired…I'm sorry."

Erik leans to kiss him for real. "Go to sleep then." Charles does, moments later, and Erik buries his face against Charles's shoulder and wants to cry, but nothing happens.

* * *

Four more days. Miserable days. Miserable because Charles is weakening and in so much pain or miserable himself, miserable because Erik can't spend every moment with him—he has to give Charles and Raven a bit of time to themselves, every now and then, and the boys wants to see him sometimes, too—and miserable because there is less time to be had. Charles is awake less and less, sometimes only awake to scream and then drop into unconsciousness again.

Usually it's Erik holding him then. When Charles relapses, when he screams like that, Raven can't bear to be in the room.

It doesn't help that Charles is so utterly tired of it now that he cries, whenever he's conscious after.

All Erik can do is hold him and kiss him and wipe the tears away, and know it isn't enough. Charles, of course, does everything he can to make him think it is.

The fourth day Hank confronts him in the kitchen.

"He's letting this go on because of you, you know."

Erik pauses with the toast halfway to his mouth, and it isn't hard to put it down. He was really feeling too sick to his stomach to eat, anyway. "What?"

"When you showed up, we thought he had maybe two or three days left. Maybe. It's been more than a week now. He's holding on because you and Raven are here. He's fighting because he wants to be here for you, and he's suffering for it."

Erik's jaw clenches. _I'll stay here as long as I can…_ Charles's own words echo in his mind, and he knows, really, that Hank is right, but he doesn't want to admit it. "You don't know what you're talking about," he says tightly.

"I've been here longer than you have," Hank snaps. "Alex, Sean, and me. _We_ have been here. We watched him deteriorate. We know how long it took for him to get where he is, and we know how much he's suffered. We know how much he just wanted it to be _over_ —until you showed up. Now he can't let go."

The metal in the kitchen begins to rattle. "Shut up."

Hank, though, isn't afraid of him. "You have to tell him it's all right for him to go. You have to _let him go_."

The rattling is more fierce now, but when Erik answers it's quiet. "I can't."

Hank, too, is still calm, but Erik can see the pain in his yellow eyes and knows that the young scientist is only saying any of this at all because he cares. He doesn't want to see Charles hurting anymore than Erik does, or Raven does. He cares as a friend would, but he knows it's different for Erik.

"If you love him you'll tell him it's all right. You'll tell him he can go."

Hank leaves then, and it takes a good ten minutes for Erik to calm enough to stop the rattling in the kitchen.

* * *

Erik doesn't want Charles to suffer. He knows it's killing Raven, too, but the thought of it being over, of giving up, of letting go…

For Charles's sake, he wants to, but he can't. But…Hank is right, too.

That night and most of the fifth day since Raven's arrival Erik spends wrestling with himself, and Charles spends it either shivering or screaming. Not that he's strong enough to really scream anymore. It's harsh breath and broken weak screeching sounds, which are almost worse than the screaming was.

A dozen times. In sixteen hours. Maybe more. He stopped counting. None of them slept during the night. Charles grips his hand, or Raven's, sometimes, when he's conscious, but that is all he can do. Consciousness is a relative thing now. Conscious is what he is when he isn't _un_ conscious, but Erik isn't sure how aware he is. He doesn't speak, but Erik feels Charles in his mind, sometimes, and has a feeling it's Charles's way of reassuring himself that Erik and Raven are there.

As the afternoon drags on Erik can feel himself drifting off, but before he lets himself rest he pushes up to take in Charles's resting face. The expression there is pained, and he wants to make it better. He thinks the younger man is asleep, but when he presses his lips gently to Charles's mouth the telepath responds to the kiss for the first time in maybe a day.

"Charles?" Erik breathes. Raven has gone for a moment; they're alone.

The only response is a slight movement of Charles's head and that feeling again, the tugging at his mind and the sense of warmth that he knows now is Charles trying to say that he loves him.

"I love you, too," Erik whispers. His voice breaks. "I'm so sorry. For everything. I love you so much…"

He wants to do it then—to tell Charles it's all right to let go. He does love Charles. More than anything. But he can't do it. He wonders if there will ever be any redemption for him, after this. He wonders if, once Charles is gone, he'll care enough to want it.

He doesn't have to wonder if he's imagining the tears that slip from the corner of one of Charles's eyes.

* * *

In the end, he doesn't have to say it. He doesn't have to tell Charles anything. He falls asleep, and Charles is there, standing on the terrace at the back of the mansion. The satellite dish is in the distance and that cocky smile is in place, and they're in the same clothing they wore that day, when Erik moved the dish.

"It's the last truly happy moment I could think of," Charles explains. "That night, it…it was wonderful…intense, but…we argued. I think we knew what was coming, and it…well…"

Erik knows what he means. The word _frantic_ comes to mind. _Scared_. It was probably the best sex either of them had ever had, but they couldn't really put the word _happy_ anywhere near it.

"How are you doing this?"

"You're asleep, for one, we both are, and you're beside me. That all makes it much easier. And I…suppose it's easier because I'm still so connected to you."

Erik is already at the railing looking back, and Charles comes to his side. Erik turns to him, reaching to cup his cheek and stroke the pink, healthy skin he hasn't seen in so long—since before they parted. In this dream that isn't only a dream Charles is healthy and walking and nothing that happened in Cuba has affected him at all. Erik knows he did that on purpose—showed them here, this way. He doesn't have to ask.

Then he wonders why, why now, and he pulls in a sharp breath. "Charles…?"

The familiar cocky smile disappears immediately, to be replaced by the weary look that's become equally familiar in the past week or more. "I had to do this. I don't think I'm going to wake up this time, Erik," Charles says softly.

"But…you were just awake…I felt you…"

Charles smiles again, fondly. "I remember. You kissed me."

"Then—"

"Then I fell asleep. Not long after you did, if not before. I've tried, but I can't open my eyes. I know that much doesn't matter anymore, but it isn't only my eyes. It's like…like I can't remember how to move anymore. Anything. Soon enough the essential functions will stop, too, I think. You know what that means," he says gently.

Erik shakes his head stubbornly, still holding Charles's cheek, still stroking it with his thumb. "No…god, Charles, you can't just…you can't. Not yet."

Charles doesn't break eye contact, but he reaches for Erik's other hand and squeezes it at their sides. "I'm all right. I'm ready."

" _I'm_ not ready."

"I'm sorry…I did everything I could to stay…"

Erik's teeth grind for a moment, the confrontation with Hank in the kitchen jumping forward in his mind. "I know," he manages. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yes I did." Charles winces and releases Erik's hand to reach up and take his face in both hands. Erik lets his own hand drop from Charles's cheek to his arm, and the hand Charles released comes up up in a mirror hold.

Charles just looks at him, for the longest time, but Erik doesn't mind that. It gives him an excuse to look back.

"I can't tell you what to do, Erik. I know that right now _you_ aren't even sure of what you want anymore, but…" Charles is right. He doesn't know. Going back to the Brotherhood after this seems empty and wrong, but he can't stay, either. He still believes what he believes. "I know I can't change what you believe, either, Erik, but whatever you do, maybe…try to do it with less violence? At least try. For me. I've already told you I want more for you than that."

Erik doesn't know what to say to that. "I can try."

Charles smiles weakly and pushes up on his toes to kiss him. It always made Erik smile, how adorable it was when he had to do that, and now is no exception. He's smiling behind Charles's mouth as he returns the kiss, and enough of the smile remains when Charles pulls back that his own sad smile brightens.

Erik still has Charles around the waist, and he refuses to let go. Charles doesn't say anything about that; he lets his head rest against Erik's chest.

"Where will you go?" Erik asks then, wondering if, as a telepath or just as a person or because he's close Charles possibly knows more than he does.

"I don't know. I suppose I'll find out when I get there. I'll wait for you, wherever I am."

"If we end up in the same place."

"Don't say that; that's awful."

Erik gives a low chuckle. "You're better than I am, and you know it."

"Stop," Charles laughs. "I have my own faults." Then he's all seriousness again. "There _are_ things I regret." He looks up at Erik then. "But I will never regret knowing you, or loving you."

They hear laughing from up by the house and look to see Moira ducking her head back inside, and themselves, Erik chasing Charles into the doorway. It takes a mere moment for the memory to play out, because that was all it has lasted. Erik plasters Charles to the stone of the mansion, pinning his wrists, and kisses him breathless, still caught up in the heady victory of moving the satellite dish. Charles responds to that easily enough but laughs and shoves him off once Erik begins to rut against him.

"Tonight, Erik! We'll miss the address if we go on like this now."

Erik leans closer for one more brief kiss, and quickly kisses down Charles's jawline to his neck. Charles gives a startled yelp when he ends with a solid bite. "Tonight, then," Erik grins. Charles is flushing and glowering, trying to hide a grin, and they disappear inside, Charles pulling the collar of his navy sweater tighter.

Of course, they both know how that night turned out.

And the next day.

The Erik and Charles of now are still on the terrace, still holding each other. "Did you do that on purpose?" Erik asks.

"I don't know anymore…it's hard to know what the rest of my mind is up to when I'm not paying it any attention. I suppose that's to be expected, seeing as it's unraveling."

"You're not helping."

"I'm sorry…" Charles thinks for a moment. "I would have. Done that on purpose. I want you to know it's the things like that I'll remember. I would feel much better if you tied to do the same."

"I can't promise anything."

Charles nods in understanding, and Erik kisses him again. It lasts longer this time, neither of them wanting to let go.

"I can't maintain this any longer," Charles whispers against his lips. "I have to go. I'm sorry."

"I love you."

It all begins to fade around them, and Charles smiles. "I love you, too."

* * *

Erik wakes in a gasp, twisting immediately to check that Charles is still beside him. He is. He's still breathing, but the oxygen mask is over his face now and Raven is awake.

She is also crying, holding her brother's hand tightly, and when she looks up and catches his wide eyes Erik knows: Charles said goodbye to her, too.

"No," he says suddenly. It isn't a moan, or a denial. It's a determination. " _No_."

The clock reads seven minutes until six. He has seven minutes before Azazel checks in. It's enough. Erik leans to kiss Charles's forehead quickly, then clambers to his feet and bolts from the room.

"Erik…!"

Raven's confused voice follows him, but he doesn't stop. Six minutes now. It's just enough time to unlock the closet in the next room and take the costume from it. It's enough time to change and to take the helmet from the closet's shelf. With the blasted thing under his arm Erik bounds down the stairs, stepping into the foyer just as the teleporter appears.

Azazel sees him dressed and cocks his head. "You are ready to return? What of Mystique?"

"I'm not ready to return. I need Emma here. _Now_."

A raised eyebrow. "She will not be…happy."

"I am well aware of that," Erik answers stiffly.

The teleporter shrugs and vanishes, and Erik shoves the helmet on and waits.


	6. Chapter 6

The moment Azazel appears with Emma and releases her, the female telepath wastes not a moment in crossing her arms in indignation and cocking both a hip _and_ an eyebrow. She cocks them straight at Erik, of course, clearly annoyed with the presence of the helmet and _her_ presence here.

"What am I doing here?" she demands.

"You're going to do something for me."

"I am," she deadpans. A brass candlestick on a table at the edge of the foyer begins to rattle, but Emma merely smirks.

She stops smirking when it wraps around her throat. She doesn't go diamond—which would be all but admitting fear of him—but she glares vehemently at the violation. He hasn't threatened her like this since Russia, and they didn't work together then.

"This is not a game," Erik growls. "Follow me." Considering the fact that they do work together now, he unwraps the candlestick from Emma's neck and returns it to its normal shape. But when he turns on his heel and stalks up the stairs, it floats beside him—a clear warning. He hears Emma snort, but she follows. Over his shoulder, Erik tells Azazel to stay where he is.

He thinks they'll reach Charles's room undisturbed, but a mere few feet from the door Hank rounds the corner. Obviously, he isn't expecting to see Emma.

"Hey! What is she doing here! You can't—!" He doesn't finish. Erik doesn't necessarily want to hurt the boy, but he is panic mode now, and he knows it, and he doesn't care. Not with Charles's life in the balance.

He yanks the bedroom door open with a thought and sends Hank hurtling backward with another, just hard enough and far enough to keep him from following them inside. He all but shoves Emma into the bedroom and shuts the door, almost in Hank's face. The boy recovered quickly than he anticipated.

There's banging on the door after that, but he ignores it and quietly fuses the lock behind him. The solid construction of the old mansion, and its doors in particular, should keep even Hank out for a little while at least.

With any luck, that's all they'll need anyway.

Raven, of course, is up and yelling. "Erik, what the hell are you doing! You weren't supposed to bring her here!"

"Nice to know I'm wanted," Emma scoffs.

"What else was I supposed to do?" Erik questions hotly.

Raven doesn't have an answer to that.

Emma, meanwhile, has caught sight of the unmoving figure in the bed—Charles, far too small and deathly pale by now, the oxygen mask still over his face. The other telepath's eyebrows are up. "I take it this is your problem? Dying, isn't he?" Their silence confirms her assumption. "How is that something I can do anything about?"

"You know who he is," Erik says. "He's a telepath. It's his mind that's damaged, not his body. You're going to fix it."

"I didn't hear a 'please' in there anywhere."

Erik glares, and Emma purses her lips. "You're right; I know who he is. That still doesn't tell me why I should help him. In fact, it tells me I probably shouldn't. He's powerful, and he's an agent against our cause."

"He isn't _against_ us. He just cares about the humans too much. He wants peace as much as we do."

"Yes, _he_ wants peace. _We_ know we're the better species, and that we should be taking our rightful place, remember? There's a difference."

"We don't have time to argue this, Emma! He's dying!"

It was a mistake, yelling like that. It showed his desperation, and in front of Emma that is a weakness.

She's smirking again now. "Again, I ask the question."

He has the candlestick around her neck again in an instant, and this time he pulls it tight.

"Erik!" It's Raven, behind him and back by the bed.

Erik ignores her, glowering at Emma and tightening the candlestick's metal around her throat until she has no choice but to shift to diamond form.

"Erik, stop it! You know Charles wouldn't want you doing this; stop it!"

His jaw clenches, the memory of Charles in Russia hitting him hard. It almost makes him stop. "You don't want him to die any more than I do!" he shoots back instead. But a moment later he lets the metal go slack anyway, before anything can crack. Emma should have the point by now.

"You could call Azazel and be out of here in an instant, but I _would_ find you," he says anyway, for emphasis.

She does indeed have the point now, and while she resists the urge to rub at her neck once she shifts back she glares at him again. "What do you think I can do? What's wrong with him?" she asks tightly.

"He was in Shaw's head when I killed him."

Emma's eyebrows climb to her hairline once more. "Never seen the effects of a situation like that, but it sure as hell doesn't sound good."

It takes a great deal of effort to calm himself, and even then the current of panic and urgency is still underneath. "I'd gathered that," Erik says evenly. "Seeing as it's killing him. Find out _how_ and _why_ , and _fix it_ , or I swear to god I will kill _you_."

"Erik…!" Raven hisses.

Emma pays the shapeshifter no mind, examining Erik to see if he's serious—since she can't do it the usual way with the helmet to obstruct her. Finally she lets out an angry breath, but the way she does it and that she moves closer to the bed tells him that she's accepted defeat.

He lets the candlestick slip away from her neck entirely, taking form again, but he still holds it near her. Emma is looking at Charles now, arms crossed and her posture relaxing a bit as she gains that faraway look that means she's assessing something.

Erik waits, wishing he could feel more patient, and Raven moves to his side.

"You know he would throw a fit," she whispers.

"I know that. He _will_ throw a fit. He can throw a fit healthy," Erik says firmly. Raven doesn't say anything else after that. She watches Emma, and Erik knows her desire for her brother to live has won out over anything else.

Then, after what seems like forever, Emma twists to face them again. She's frowning. "Sorry. I can't help him."

Erik's blood freezes in his veins, and the candlestick drops abruptly to the floor with a dull thud. "What?"

"How do you know you can't help him? What is it? Why can't you do anything?" Raven, of course, is the one to remember to demand details.

Erik just wishes the earth would swallow him. _No…_

He'd been so sure this would work.

Emma is shrugging. "The good news is, his mind isn't really _damaged_ so much as it's being suffocated. But being connected to Shaw when he died destroyed Charles's defenses, and everything Shaw felt—the fear and other negative emotions as well as the physical pain—stayed lodged in his mind in much more than memory form, even if he wasn't aware of it. After that, so did everything else negative that happened that day, and for a while after that, until his defenses were repaired. However, apparently there was quite a lot of negative that day, not to mention after, and before he could get any shields back up he'd collected way too much of it."

"It?" Raven asks weakly.

"Negativity. As telepaths, we have to keep that stuff from staying with us; if we held onto every bit of pain, physical or mental, that we experienced through others over the years, accidentally or otherwise, it would kill us. That's what shields are _for_ , and that's why growing up a telepath is _hell_ until you figure it out. Luckily, children's minds are more elastic and resilient, and that's probably the only reason we survive that stage. Then again, most kids don't go through in their lifetime what Charles here went through in one day. And with his shields down, he kept it all."

Erik's jaw is clenched again, so tightly it hurts.

"So what does that _mean_?"

Emma glares at him in annoyance, as if perturbed at having to explain something complex to a child who will obviously never understand it anyway. "That _means_ that…the easiest way I can put it is that there's a ball of all that negativity—ball, cloud, what the hell ever, though obviously it's not literal—that's been lodged in his mind since Cuba. It's been growing since then. Some of his leftover inward defenses probably tried to contain it, so he probably didn't have any symptoms at first, but when it was big enough it broke from containment and began to choke things out. It was always going to kill him, and there are a dozen different ways that could have played out, depending on what got covered over first, but it looks like it's shutting his body down, correct? That's happening because his brain can't access the commands for his bodily functions. The cloud is too large, and they're blocked."

"Then get rid of it!" Raven exclaims.

"I _said_ I can't help. I meant it. I can't destroy this thing. There's too much there. The only way to destroy it would be to disperse it, and not only would that be tricky and a risk of _my_ life, but if I tried that the pieces would probably find homes in the rest of us. It would kill us all. There's enough there to kill half a dozen telepaths as powerful as I am, and who knows how many other mutants, not to _mention_ humans. Granted, I don't care about the humans or any of you, but _I_ would rather not die, thank you."

Everyone is silent after that, and it seems as if the final word has been said but Erik's mind is reeling.

He can't breathe. There _has_ to be a way. There has to be.

"Would moving it as a whole be safer?"

Emma gives him that condescending look again. "Obviously. But like I said, it has to have somewhere to _go_. I can't just pull it out into the air; it doesn't work like that. It's not a _thing_ , really; it's psychic energy. It can only move within minds."

"But you could move it."

She huffs and crosses her arms. "Maybe. It still wouldn't be the safest thing I've ever done, but I could probably do it. Not that it matters. Unless you want to grab someone off the street, I'd suggest you say your goodbyes."

Emma starts for the door, but the lock is still fused so Erik doesn't worry. He's focused on nothing in particular, instead, until he's looking at Charles. He watches the younger man's chest rise and fall, and the movement is so small it's almost invisible. It's also slow and the rhythm is erratic, even with the oxygen.

Charles is running out of time.

"If you moved it, what's happening to him would stop?"

Emma stops herself, looking back at him curiously. "His mind would be able to access everything again. His body would be functioning normally immediately. But we've already established that I can't move it."

"When did we establish that?" Erik snaps.

Raven has been quiet, arms wrapped around herself, but now her arms drop and she looks up quickly, warily. "Erik…"

"There is nowhere for me to move it _to_ ," Emma says slowly, as if speaking to a child again. "There is nothing I can do. I'm leaving now."

"No, you're not."

She glares at him again. "What else do you want me to say? Everything I've told you is true."

Erik knows it is. One thing she gained from Shaw was his manipulative skills. She has never needed to lie. She can use the truth to get what she wants almost as masterfully as Shaw himself could.

That is part of what makes her so dangerous. It's why he wears the helmet.

The pounding on the door has stopped, though he isn't sure when it did. He wonders if Hank has gone for reinforcements.

"I believe you," Erik says then.

"Then why am I still here?" Emma questions, annoyed.

He doesn't have to think about it. He did this; he is going to make it right.

"You're going to save him." Erik is already pulling his gloves off, and Raven stops him with a tight hand on his arm.

"What are you talking about? You can't mean—"

"Emma has already made it quite clear that I can't mean anything else."

_I would do ANYTHING if I could fix this. Anything…_

His own memory. His own words.

Erik wonders if he's imagining it when Raven seems to go several shades paler blue. "Y-You can't. You're crazy."

_It should be me. God, Charles, I'm sorry…it should be me…_

"This is my doing. Charles shouldn't have to die because of what _I_ did."

Raven's mouth opens, but Emma interrupts before she can speak again. "Wait. Do you have _any_ idea what you're saying?"

Erik looks at her steadily, removing his other glove and letting them both drop to the floor. When he answers her, he's unhooking the cape and letting it fall, too. "I know exactly what I'm saying."

Emma, for once, is dumbfounded. It's Raven who protests.

"Erik, NO. You can't DO that. Charles would never be able to live with himself if you—"

His chest is tight, but he manages to answer firmly anyway. "He'll have to; because I won't let him die for my actions when he could have been saved."

"NO, you—! Emma, tell him he's insane!"

"You're insane," Emma shrugs willingly.

"Maybe I am. But you're going to do this. I plan to keep my promise to kill you if you don't." With that, the candlestick picks itself up from the floor again, and Emma scowls at it and then him.

"You really are insane. If I transferred everything that's killing _him_ into _your_ mind you would die—and not in months, or week, or even days. You're not a telepath, your mind isn't trained, and you'd be getting it all at once—everything it's grown to be since it's been multiplying from day one. You would have a few hours _, maybe._ On the extremely conservative side. And they would not be fun hours."

"I thought as much." Maybe not the extremely limited amount of time part. But that doesn't matter.

And Emma needs to shut the hell up and do this before he can change his mind. Not that he wants to change his mind.

But just because he is Magneto does not mean he is immune to fear.

Raven's fingernails are digging into his arm now, even through the thick material of his red tunic. "Erik, stop! Drop it! He wouldn't want that!" she hisses desperately.

_Wouldn't…wish this on anyone….Certainly…not you._

Charles's voice echoes in his mind, but Erik pushes it away, blinking quickly. Maybe Raven is right, but it doesn't change the fact that fixing this is the only right thing to do. It doesn't change the fact that he will never forgive himself if he doesn't do this. If he doesn't do everything in his power to keep Charles alive.

He shakes Raven off. "Erik—!"

"Don't you want him alive?" Erik asks roughly. She is blinking furiously now, too, even more so than he is, and she almost turns away.

"Of course I do! But not like that. It wouldn't be right."

"It would be more than right. It would be the only thing that _is_ right." His conviction strengthens, saying it out loud. "I don't have a choice."

Raven starts to protest again, pulling at him frantically, and he knows that she will continue to protest. She will not let this happen while she is here, but the door's lock is already fused and the boys could be waiting outside, and beyond that she isn't wearing any clothing for him to toss her with. He can't restrain her, either. She could change form to free herself easily. He only has one other option.

Erik blocks out her protests, apologizes silently to both Raven and Charles, and swiftly swings the floating candlestick into the back of her head with exactly the right amount of force. She drops, unconscious but not injured, and he catches her and lowers her gently to the floor.

When he straightens Emma's mouth is pressed into a thin line, and he can see that she's tried the door and found herself unable to open it. Her hand still on the knob, she is studying him now, like a scientist who's found a new species.

"You're serious."

"I'm serious," he agrees. He didn't mean for his voice to waver, but it does. Just a bit. _He_ notices it, anyhow, but maybe Emma didn't. He can't tell.

Erik turns his back on her and goes to the bed. He stands at first, watching Charles's breathing slow.

"Why should I do this?" Emma is saying. "I have no incentive for killing you, beyond annoyance, but it's better for me if he dies. He's a threat. Or he would be if he were healthy."

"You'll do it because I will still kill you if you don't. What's wrong, Emma? With me gone, you're the leader of the Brotherhood."

"True."

"Do you have a problem with that?"

"Not at all."

"Then why aren't you doing anything?"

There's a snort. "I can't do anything while you have that helmet on, honey."

Erik gives her one last glare over his shoulder before he lowers himself to the bed to sit at Charles's side. He brushes the matted hair back, and his throat tightens when he realizes that Charles's skin is no longer pale and nearly translucent, but gray. The gray of death, even though his chest is still moving. If nothing changes, he will be gone within minutes.

He swallows with difficulty. "You said his body will begin functioning normally again immediately?"

"Theoretically. I don't see why it wouldn't."

"He'll be able to breathe, then."

He can't see her raising an eyebrow, but he's sure she is. "As far along as it's gone, as wasted as he is, there's still a chance he might die anyway, if that's what you're trying to ask. I'm no doctor but I figure his body might give out anyway even though it _will_ finally remember how to function."

"How much of a chance?"

"I don't know; I was never one for math."

It doesn't matter. If there is any chance that Charles will live, it's worth it. This, then, is his redemption. He isn't doing it for that reason, but he supposes it is.

Maybe Charles will understand that much. Maybe he can help Raven understand it, too.

Erik nods to himself, and takes the helmet off. "Do it."

_I'm so sorry, Charles. Please forgive me._

He bends to kiss Charles's forehead, not caring if Emma is watching him, and when he straightens again his fingers curl around one of the small cold hands and hold on. A second later the sledgehammer hits him and doubles him to the mattress.

* * *

Charles isn't sure where he is, or why it's so dark, but he knows that Erik's face is the last thing he remembers. He remembers saying goodbye, and smiling to make it easier for both of them. He remembers wanting to cry, instead.

Where is this place then? Is he dead? Is there where people wait to die?

He doesn't know how long it's dark, but he knows when the light begins to return. It isn't just light, either. It's feeling, and breath, and…and less pain. Finally no pain, really. He can't remember the last time there was no pain. But it fades away, all of it, leaving only soreness, and then he realizes that if he can feel soreness then…is he awake? Was he wrong? Is it not time for him to go yet? Can he talk to Erik one more time?

He knows he won't be able to see him—he doesn't think he's strong enough to use Raven's eyes anymore—but…

And he can breathe. He doesn't have to fight for it, and the mask that he can feel now is more in the way than anything else, but he still can't move. He still doesn't…remember how? That sounds strange but it's the way he explained it to Erik, in the dream.

But that is slowly changing too. Charles lies still and waits, not understanding, but slowly the weight holding him still lifts. Other than his dead legs he can feel, and he could move if we wanted to, but he doesn't yet. He doesn't understand what's happening. It isn't only the weight on his body lifting, but the veil in his mind. It feels as if something is being pulled away—something oppressive; something that is fighting to stay, and for a moment there is pain again—but then whatever it is is gone and his mind is clear for the first time…since Cuba?

Yes, it's really been that long. Since his mind felt this light, this free, and since there was no pain.

His mind is clear, clean, like new almost, but Charles is still confused. What's happened? Is he dying then? Is this the removing of burdens, the beginning of waking up somewhere better? But everything feels so physical. Real. He is still in his own bed; he's sure of it. He can feel the IV in his arm and the sheets beneath him and the blankets pulled up to his chest. The pillows under his head.

And a familiar hand in his, squeezing hard and in spasms.

He opens his eyes quickly, forgetting that it won't make a difference.

But it does. He's looking at the ceiling in his room, and it isn't blurred by exhaustion or pain or the failure of his mind or anything else.

Finally his hearing is clear, too—or he begins to notice it, anyway, as he comes out of the confusion—and Charles realizes that Erik is screaming.

_Erik!_

He reaches to rip mask from his face, and pull the needle from his arm, and his arms are weak but they respond without question. He wonders if they will be able to help him move, and just barely they do. He pushes up as quickly as he's able on an arm, turning to the sound, and finds Erik beside him—writhing on the bed, gripping his hand tight enough for it to hurt now.

"Erik!" Charles's voice is rough, but it works. He coughs involuntarily, and his throat clears a bit more and he tries again. "Erik!"

Erik doesn't respond. The scream is agonized and helpless, like…like…

And everything clicks into place. He feels the other minds in the room—Raven, unconscious but unharmed, and…Emma Frost.

Charles looks up sharply, squeezing back with the hand Erik is holding now, and he knows his eyes must be wild. "What did you do!"

She shrugs, and she seems almost amused by Erik's writhing. "What he asked me to do."

It isn't the answer he wants, not quickly enough, and he dives into her mind without thinking. The insult is that she lets him in, unafraid of him in his weakened state, but Charles is too panicked to care.

"Oh god," he breathes in a moan. She lets him see everything he wants, in an instant—the truth of what was wrong with Charles himself, Erik's realization of the only way to fix it, and his fierce insistence, the way he made certain Raven would not interfere, and everything else…

Erik is still screaming. Now Charles knows why.

"Undo it!" he begs, heedless of shame. "This isn't right!"

"Sorry, sweetie, but that took a lot out of me. It wasn't exactly safe, you know. I had to be careful. I can't do it _again_."

" _Please_!"

He doesn't want to die. But he doesn't want Erik to die, either.

Emma purses her lips in something almost like sympathy. "I was wrong, by the way," she says. "He doesn't have hours." Then Charles feels her reaching out with her mind and then Azazel is beside her.

"Let's go," she says shortly.

The teleporter raises an eyebrow at the sight of Magneto, sans helmet and gloves and cape, twisting on the bed in agony, but strangely enough he doesn't ask about that. "Shall I bring Mystique as well?" he asks instead. He is looking at Raven's unconscious form on the floor now, and is that worry?

"No. She and Magneto aren't coming."

"Wait!" Charles is shouting. Azazel, for once, is hesitating, but then he takes Emma's arm and they disappear. "No! Damnit…!"

He turns his attention back to Erik, and his hand feels like it may break and he doesn't think Erik is even aware he's still holding it. Charles pushes farther up on his arm, pushing with the other behind him until he is on his side and he can drag himself closer to Erik. His body remembers how to work now, how to move, but he is still weak, and rather than staying balanced on his side like that it is easier to let himself tip against Erik's side.

Erik is still screaming, though too exhausted to move much now, and Charles reaches out with his mind, desperate to stop the immediate attack—stop the reliving of Shaw's death, stop the agony that Erik couldn't stop for him. His chest is constricted, making it harder to breath again from emotion rather than lack of ability, and he understands now. He knows how hard it has been for Erik to be here, watching this happen on and off for days.

Just this once is tearing him apart now.

It stops on its own before he's tried to force it to, and Erik goes limp against the mattress under him, his hand releasing its hold as well.

Charles realizes then that he's crying. He wipes the tears stubbornly away before he says anything, but in the end there was no point. His voice is choked when it comes out anyway. "Erik…Erik?"

A few more seconds, and Erik moans quietly and his eyelids flicker open into a squint. Charles says his name again and the bleary, pain-hazed gaze focuses on him. Somehow, even through the lingering memory of agony—and whatever other pain he must still be in—the grey eyes light up when they see Charles.

A trembling hand pushes up to his face, and Erik's expression is a mask of relief now. "You're…all right. You'll be all right…"

Charles covers the hand with his and holds it there, against his cheek, folding his fingers through Erik's. "I'll be all right because you're a _fool_. God, Erik, _why_ …?"

"Had to…couldn't let you die for me."

"And you think I'm happy to let you die for _me_! Being left behind is the worse end of deal, you selfish bastard! Damn…"

He trails off, shutting his eyes and pressing two fingers of his free hand to his temple. From being in Emma's mind, he knows what she did. Maybe he can…can something. She wasn't powerful enough to break up what was inside him safely, but he knows he is more powerful than she is. Maybe he can.

In an instant he's found it—the knot of _wrong_ that was killing him that is now killing Erik—and he knows then that Emma was right in what she said before she left: Erik does not have hours. Erik has minutes.

Charles pulls desperately, not sure what he plans to do other than take it back himself if he can, but nothing happens, really. A small scrap comes off in his proverbial hands, and then Erik is yanking his fingers from his temple and as weak as he is that shatters his concentration completely.

"Don't!" Erik is barking hoarsely. "Too dangerous."

"Erik, I have to try! Maybe I can take enough of it back, stop the growth…m-maybe neither of us has to die. Please, I can't just let you—!"

"You can't take it back…if you did that…even if you could save both of us…it wouldn't be worth it. We would both have some of it. We would…would both be sick, and miserable, and in pain. The rest of our lives. You said you wouldn't want to live like that…"

"I would if it would keep you alive!"

Erik shakes his head weakly. "No…you shouldn't have to. You won't…you'll get better."

Charles ignores him. He jerks his wrist free from Erik's hand easily and rests his fingers against his temple again. He tries, tries as hard as he can, but the small, infinitesimal piece that broke off the first time was the most he could do. His powers have returned to him but his body is weak, and he can't use them. Not now. Not in time. He can't do anything. He tries until he's shouting in pain from the effort, but he can't do anything.

"I can't," he sobs. "I can't…oh god…"

Erik is going to die.

His face is in Erik's chest, his tears soaking into the ridiculous tunic, and he feels Erik's fingers comb through his hair and trace around to his chin to nudge it up.

"Hey…" Erik's breath is coming shorter, his face several shades too pale already, and his skin is coated in a layer of sweat that has soaked his hair. But he smiles. "You saw me again."

Charles draws himself up a bit more against Erik's side to see the other man's face more clearly, and he sobs again, weakly. "Not the way I _wanted_. Not the way I wanted, Erik. I didn't want this. I didn't want you to sacrifice yourself for me."

"It wouldn't have been right to…do anything else…"

"The hell with right or wrong! I love you," he swallows. "I…I wanted you to have another chance."

"I did," Erik whispers. "I made the right choice this time."

Then his face crumples, and he groans helplessly in pain, coughing and choking on it, and this isn't relapse. This is simply the malfunctioning of his dying mind. Charles pulls himself up farther, to press kisses to Erik's face, and he still holds a hand in one of his and now he strokes Erik's cheek with the other. "I'm here," he cries brokenly. "I'm here, I'm here." The way Erik was here for him. He'll do it, even if it is killing him in an entirely different way than he has been dying for weeks.

Erik deserves at least that.

Erik is shivering now, and Charles can't tell if it's from cold or if it is merely involuntary because Erik doesn't complain. Not about that, or about the pain. Not out loud. But his face is damp with tears now.

"I think…you're braver than I am," he manages. "I think you always were."

"Why do you say that?"

"You—AH! God…you…you dealt with this…for weeks." He stops when he begins to screams again, and it isn't as loud this time; he's weakening already. Charles tries to stop it, but he can't. He tries to mute the pain of the relapse, but can't do that either. It's all advanced too far, is too strong for him now, and there is nothing he can do.

This time when it stops Erik is sobbing. "Why didn't you say anything when it _happened_?" he cries. "Why didn't you want to…to hurt me, scream at me, anything…? How could you just…go through that…and not _say_ anything?"

Charles gently wipes the tears from Erik's face, fighting hard to keep himself in check. "I loved you. I thought I could fix it…keep you from becoming who you were starting to become by killing Shaw. Wanting to hurt you for it…because it had hurt me…that wouldn't have helped. But then you tried to kill all those people, on those ships…I gave up, but by then it was too late to tell you, to be angry at you with you there to see it." He swallows hard. "I shouldn't have given up, Erik. I'm so sorry...I shouldn't have. I should have found you. I should have tried again. There is still good in you; there is so _much_ of it, and you just can't see it."

_You think so?_

"You wouldn't have done this if it weren't there. And I wouldn't lie to you."

The pain seems to have stopped, finally, for now, and Erik is trying to catch his breath but of course it isn't easy. Charles fumbles behind him, finds the oxygen mask and settles it over Erik's nose and mouth, holding it there. They're both quiet then, until Erik is breathing a little easier and directs his thoughts.

_You can start your school now._

"I would rather have done it with you at my side," Charles admits painfully.

Erik's eyes are sad then, and he squeezes Charles's hand a little tighter. _But you were right before…if Emma had been able to save you with no consequences to me, I would have left again. Maybe not right away, but I couldn't have stayed. You know that. You want to make peace with the humans, and I…don't._

"You want quite a lot. What of everything you wanted to do? How could you just— _why_ , Erik? Why did you do this?" His voice is tight again, and he doesn't think there is anything he can do about it.

_I'm not naïve, Charles. Maybe you won't do it the same way I would have, but you want a better world for mutants, too. Maybe you're even right; maybe your way will be better. Maybe not. But if only one of us could be here to find out, you deserved for it to be you. At least you're sure of your motives, and they're noble. I don't know what I would want or why I would want it anymore, if I lived. Not after all of this. All I know is that the world needs to change, and someone needs to do it. And I know that I love you. But that last was all I needed to know to make the decision. It wasn't hard._

"You're a fool," Charles chokes out again. "A damn fool."

Erik tugs the mask down, barely able to move that much, it seems. "I know." He swallows. "Do you forgive me?" he asks weakly.

_Oh Erik, I told you that. I forgave you long ago._

Charles wants to kiss him properly, but dragging himself up that far is hard with his arms so weak and his legs useless. He manages to get there, but before he can do it Erik is looking at him with that much more pain in his gaze.

Charles knows what he's thinking, knows he wants to apologize again—knows how much Erik is sorry for what happened to his legs, but Charles shakes his head stubbornly, biting back another sob. "Don't. Not now. I don't want to…" He can't finish, so he kisses Erik instead, and it tastes of salt—the tears and sweat between them. There have been enough kisses already these past few days, that have tasted that way.

When he pulls back Erik gulps noisily, understanding. "You're right…I don't want to, either." Talk about things they can't change now, he means. They both mean. They've done enough of it.

Erik's eyelids are low, and the rise and fall of his chest is slowing. Charles kisses him again, soft and deliberate and as long as it can be before Erik has to breathe. Erik's hands grip weakly at his arms, but that is the only response beyond the pressure of his lips moving. He is losing muscle control, and everything else will follow. Once Erik has a breath Charles is on him again, the kiss much more firm this time, and Erik doesn't seem to have any objection.

It only stops when the pain returns with the shaking. Erik is gasping and moaning quietly, and Charles is still beside him, kissing his cheeks and holding onto him and trying to help in the only way he can.

No relapse, though, but this time when it stops Erik's eyes remain closed in weariness. "That memory…" he murmurs. "Can you show me again?"

Charles gives it to him, can almost feel Erik pinning him to the stone and the ground under his feet, and Erik's breathless, eager kisses and the nip at his neck, as Erik sees and feels it all from his point of view. With both of them awake Charles isn't strong enough to take them away from where they are completely, but what he manages must be enough. Erik smiles, and when it's gone again he opens his eyes once more.

"Charles…" The name is all he can get out. _I don't regret loving you, either._

Charles can't help but smile at that, even if it comes out a bit sad. But he's smiling, and he forces it to stay there. He threads a hand through Erik's limp hair and softly kisses him again, and it takes everything he has to keep the smile in place.

When he pulls back Erik's eyes slip shut, and he stops breathing.

* * *

When Charles smiles at him Erik feels something, washing over him like a warm breeze. He forgets about it for a moment, savoring the taste of Charles's lips for what he knows will be the last time, but he knows its still there when the man he loves is looking at him again and the reassuring smile is still in place. Watery, but still in place.

He did the right thing. He knows he did. Charles will live, and he'll make the difference he always wanted to make.

It isn't until just before the darkness takes him that Erik recognizes the feeling warming him for what it is.

Peace.


	7. Epilogue

When Erik leaves Charles feels it. He feels the warm body under him go still, and he feels the mind he knows so well slip away into nothing, and he feels a piece of himself go with it.

"Erik…?" he whispers. The smile has fallen from his face and he knows there isn't any point but part of him has not accepted that. His mind reaches out desperately, finding only the nothing he knew was there, and it leaves him reeling and breathless. "Erik…!" Still his voice won't rise above a hoarse whisper.

His cheeks are warm, and it takes a moment for Charles to realize that there are tears streaming down them again. He collapses, letting his face be buried in the deep red tunic again, arms squeezing a limp form that will never return his embrace again. The first audible sob is the first loud noise in the room, and it comes out like a sound from a wounded animal.

The ones that follow are no better. Charles knows that. He doesn't, however, have the will to fight it—even when he hears, faintly, the door splintering thanks to the fused lock. Commotion. Hank and Sean and Alex, their minds in shock, Raven's coming from unconsciousness to grogginess to wakefulness, and her own shock. _Oh god. Oh no._ More commotion. The sounds of what is left of the door being closed as best it can be and then his sister's arms are around him from behind.

_I'm so sorry_ , she thinks, rather than speaking.

Charles can't stop sobbing. He can feel that he's worrying her, distressing her, and at first he tries to stop but Raven holds him tighter and tells him not to.

"Don't," she whispers. Her own voice is strained, as if she might want to cry herself. "Just…it's okay. I know. It's okay…"

It takes so much time, but eventually his arms are no longer locked around Erik but he's been shifted, pulled up against Raven and his arms are around himself and she is really holding him, now. He isn't sure when that happened or how and he doesn't know how long they stay like that, or when it is that someone pulls the sheet over Erik's face…if it was Raven or someone else.

He doesn't remember later, either, when afternoon became night and when night became morning. Then next time Charles is aware of much at all the IV is back in his arm and the sheets and his pajamas have been changed, and he and Raven are alone in the bed. Erik…Erik's body…is gone entirely.

His eyes open and his sister is a mere few inches away, facing him but asleep. When she wakes up herself her eyebrows raise and he she reaches tentatively for his face. "Hey…you with us?" There is sympathy written all over her expression, and even if he couldn't see it Charles would be able to feel it.

Still, he doesn't know how to answer the question. "I suppose I am," he murmurs at length. He's here. He's alive. He will be, because of Erik's sacrifice.

"Are you okay?" Raven asks.

This time Charles doesn't have to think about the answer. "No."

* * *

In a day or two they're able to begin the process of getting food into him again. It takes time, more days, to work his way up from liquids other than water to soup to softer foods to solids, as his body begins to regain some of its strength.

But just when Charles is really beginning to gain ground he loses it again. Physically, he can digest food again, but he has no interest. He tries, because Raven worries when he doesn't, but he doesn't want to eat. He doesn't want to do anything. He can't even cry anymore—not since that first day.

He has no conscious intention of starving himself to death, but for days he cannot manage to choke down more than a few bites of whatever is brought to him. He looks at the food and remembers that Erik died hungry—because he wouldn't leave Charles's side, wouldn't eat enough for the days he was here—and after the past in the camps that he escaped it seems so wrong.

As a result he does not leave his bed, much less his room. Raven and Hank and the others will not let him until he is strong enough that there would be no danger to his health, and because he isn't eating his strength is not returning at the rate it should. He can sit up on his own now. That, really, is it.

Nothing changes until the day Raven slaps him.

"Damnit, Charles, Erik did not die just for you to follow him!"

It's the first time Charles cries again, the numbness of the previous days since Erik's death knocked away by his sister's hand and the truth she screams at him.

It still hurts, after that. Missing Erik does not stop and loving him will never stop. But after that Charles eats.

* * *

Erik is buried under a tree on the grounds, not far off the terrace in the back. The satellite dish can be seen easily from there, and he and Charles had lunch there, once, under the long branches, watching the younger mutants train and debating the things they debated, as always.

When Charles is strong enough to be allowed outside they bring him there, the wheelchair bouncing over the uneven ground as Hank pushes it.

The boys promise to have ramps down from the terrace put in and a cement path poured to the tree, to make it easier for him to get there.

The simple stone is marked with nothing but the name—because no words could be perfect—and there is no real service save for the few minutes that all of them stay silently around the grave.

If anyone notices that after that the bag of Erik's things from the next bedroom finds its way into the chest at the foot of Charles's bed, no one says anything about it.

* * *

Adjusting to life in the wheelchair is not easy, but it's better once he has his weight back and his arms are stronger and he learns to do more for himself. Weeks go by, two months, three, and it's easier, too, because Raven stays. She helps him, and learns when not to.

"You're still here," Charles says, from across the breakfast table one morning. He and Raven are alone; the boys are not awake yet. He's been grateful that she's remained, but he doesn't understand why.

"Of course I'm still here." She doesn't offer an explanation.

"Will they come back for you?"

She shrugs and looks away. "I don't know."

Charles's throat tightens, and he has to swallow before he can ask the next question. "If they did, would you go with them?" he asks softly.

Raven looks back to him then. "No."

He's afraid to ask for any more then, afraid of how long it will last—afraid that soon enough the answer will change and the easy sibling relationship they've fallen back into to make all of this easier will be ripped away again—and she must see something in his face because she reaches out to squeeze his hand.

"I can't promise forever," she says then. "We don't know what's going to happen, or what the humans are going to do, or how much this school here is going to help. I can't promise how I'm going to feel ten years from now…so I can't promise forever." Charles nods numbly, but then Raven smiles and something in him hopes. "But I think I can do the foreseeable future."

She still hasn't taken to wearing clothes again and he doesn't think she will, but with that answer it doesn't matter anymore.

It also gives him the confidence to tease her, with the sense of humor that is slowly returning.

"You're pregnant."

She glares, but not angrily. "You're not supposed to be in my head."

"I haven't. You've been acting strangely and you're starting to show. I'm not the only one who's noticed. We may be men, Raven, but we aren't entirely stupid."

"Gee thanks."

The next time Raven asks him if he's ok, Charles says yes.

* * *

_Ten Years Later_

Spring is young and the air is still cool and crisp, making a scarf a necessity outdoors. He should really have a hat, too, but he hates them. Always has. Even though one would think he would like them much more now, with his hair gone. The fact that Raven will berate him when he goes back inside does not bother him; the sky is cloudless and there are new flowers blooming around the base of the tree and the headstone, and ringing the edge of the concrete path that stops beside the grave.

The name on the stone has the companion of another engraving now. It took Charles many months to be willing to go back through the memories of those last moments thoroughly, but when he did he was glad he had. He had been too upset at the time, to pick up on everything he was reading from Erik at the end. Later, when he finally allowed the memory to replay, to remember, he found what he had missed and somehow it made everything else make sense.

He found the peace that Erik had felt, just before he died. He was able to feel it himself after that. He found his own.

The inscription added under Erik's name reads: _Peace is always an option._

"Professor!"

He twists in his chair—a much larger and personalized powered chair designed by Hank years ago—and catches sight of the young woman coming down the path to meet him. Her red hair is down and blowing and she waves and smiles, and Charles can't help but smile in return.

"Jean!" He holds out a hand as she makes it to him, and she takes it to squeeze and leans in briefly to kiss his cheek. "Come home to us for your spring vacation, have you?"

"I have a few days. Nine more weeks after that and I'll be back to stay," she grins, as she releases his hand. "You're coming to graduation, aren't you?"

"I could hardly miss it," Charles smiles. Jean, one of the first students to come here, came as fiery preteen. She is nearly twenty-one now, and he's missed her while she's been away at university. She's grown now, so different than she was in the beginning and yet just the same. When she finishes college, she plans to return here to the school to teach.

It seems so surreal, sometimes, how much has happened in ten years.

Jean straightens and lets a hand rest on his shoulder, gaze shifting to the stone beneath the tree as his returns there, as well.

"It's been ten years exactly today, hasn't it?" she asks quietly.

"It has."

Ten years, to the day, since Erik Magnus Lehnsherr died, so that Charles could live. Jean, who is also telepathic to some extent, has been allowed into his mind in the past as part of her training. He trusts her. She is the only one, besides those who were here then, who understands how much Erik meant to him.

"Great day for me to decide to show up," Jean mutters. "I'm sorry. You probably want to be alone. We can catch up tomorrow."

"No, no. It's all right. It's good that you're here." He reaches up to cover the hand on his shoulder, but his have begun to shake. He pulls them back into his lap to clasp them together. Jean notices, and she crouches by his chair and looks up at him, taking the trembling hands in her own.

"You know, thanks to you I think I've come far enough by now; I think I could fix this for you," she says gently. She knows what it is. Again, she is the only person alive other than Raven, Hank, Sean, and Alex who does.

It is the only effect left over, from those weeks he was dying. It wouldn't have been there—Erik took on every bit of the mass of negative psychic energy that was killing him—but he'd tried to save Erik. He'd tried to keep them both alive, tried to take some of it back on himself, and the small scrap that he'd managed to pull off had lodged in his mind. It is too small to grow and no danger, but it will always be there unless he has outside help to remove it—just as he hadn't been able to save himself the first time.

Jean is right. She has enough training now; she could remove it for him.

"I don't doubt that you could," Charles says aloud. "But you needn't bother with it."

"Why not? It wouldn't be any trouble."

"I know that. But it doesn't happen often enough to be much of a nuisance."

Jean senses something else in his tone, and she raises an eyebrow at him. "And?" she asks.

Charles smiles a bit sheepishly, caught. "And I would simply rather leave it be. It reminds me of him—of…how much I loved him. How much he loved me."

"Despite your differences," she says quietly, because she knows the story.

"Yes. That part is important."

She chuckles lightly in understanding and gets back to her feet, squeezing his hands again before she releases them. "Okay. I get it."

"Thank you…"

A sudden shift in the wind sends a cold gust their way, and Jean shivers. "Brrrr! I think I'll go back inside. Are you coming, or…?"

Charles pulls his cardigan a bit tighter around himself and shakes his head. "I think I'll stay here a while longer."

That, however, is when there is a puff of sulfur beside them and nine-year-old Kurt is there. "Uhm…Uncle Charles, Mom says you should probably come in now."

Charles exchanges an amused glance with Jean. "Thank you, Kurt. Please tell my sister not to worry and that I will be inside shortly."

The boy shrugs and disappears again, and when they look toward the house they see him appear again at the door next to Raven. He speaks to her, and Charles can all but see her roll her eyes from here.

Some things never change, but some of those things he is glad for.

"You're going to be out here all afternoon, aren't you?" Jean smiles knowingly.

"Raven knows that, too, but she will always be stubborn. It's all right; she is merely looking out for me." He looks off, being tugged into the past again—where he'd been before Jean arrived. "That is much more than I once thought I would have." When he thought Raven and Erik were gone for good, dooming them to be enemies. But none of that happened.

Thanks to Erik.

"I'll leave you alone," Jean says.

"All right…thank you." He smiles at her again, before she goes. "And it _is_ good to have you home."

Then Jean is gone, and Charles is alone at the graveside. _I think you would have loved the school, Erik._

The wind comes again, and it is still cold at first, but then it abruptly becomes warm and Charles closes his eyes and smiles. The warmth is the same feeling he has sometimes, alone at night, when he is sure he can feel Erik's arms around him.

"I love you," he whispers.

He doesn't think it crazy at all when he hears an affectionate laugh in the breeze.


End file.
